


Wildfire

by vintagemisery49



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Elemental AU, Friendship, M/M, Pining, Rivals to Lovers, Training, firebender keith, kinda avatar since im a loser who loves the show too much, theres some hunk/shay for like half a second, waterbender lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 18:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14361117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagemisery49/pseuds/vintagemisery49
Summary: It’s just cause I’m going easy on you,” Lance teased as he sent a shower of ice Keith’s way.“Oh, is that so,” Keith said as he danced out of the way of the ice. “It makes sense; I haven’t even broken out into a sweat.”“Are you sure, cause where I’m standing you look kind of glistening,” Lance said as he threw up an ice wall to stop the flame of fire Keith threw at him.“Glistening?” Keith asked with a snort.~~~Lance is finally being trained in waterbending, however he wasn't expecting training alongside another student, and a firebender no less. Despite starting off a bit rocky Lance decides maybe it won't be that bad after all.





	Wildfire

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic for the Klance Reverse Bang, the artwork that I wrote this for was done by featherstorm77 on tumblr so you should definitely check it out!

When Lance had gotten the letter from the famed Water Master Blaytz telling him that he had been accepted as one of his students Lance almost washed away the house with the wave he accidently created out of excitement. He had spent the past two years trying to find someone who would take him on as their student, and while the waterbenders of the town had been fine, Lance had quickly found that they mainly taught the healing techniques of water.

Lance’s mama had always told him that his powers were much too strong for him to only learn the healing side of water, that he should learn how to control all aspects of water. She would always laugh as she told him how she knew that he would be a powerful bender, maybe even a master, when he was only two years old and caused the sea by the shore of their house to become choppy when he was angry.

“I knew right then you were going to be a powerful bender, I’d never seen such a little thing make such a big impact before,” she would say whenever she retold the story.

So now that even a master of water was accepting his strength he knew that he was meant to go out and learn everything he could.

He packed his bag the same day he got the letter and set out the next morning. There were some tearful goodbyes as he hugged every single one of his siblings and his parents as well.

“Don’t forget to write,” his mama said as she hugged him tight. “And visit us once in a while too. I know the city is kind of far-away but still-“

“Of course mama,” Lance promised as he struggled to hold back his tears. “I’ll write every day.”

Lance set off to the city Blaytz lived, Nalquod, with high hopes. As he sat on the train, watching all the scenery flash before his eyes he couldn’t help but feel that this was the beginning of something new.

He arrived at the city right before dusk. The whole station was bustling with people and Lance was sure that the number of people that were shuffling around this station was larger than the population of his hometown.

Lance was able to eventually break free of the crowd and out into the street. He dug into his pocket for the letter he had gotten to see if there had been an address of sorts on it only to hear his name being called.

“Lance? Is there someone named Lance around here?”

Lance looked up to see a boy around his age standing to the right of him calling up the steps.

“My name’s Lance,” he said, walking over to the other boy who turned to look at him. The first thing that struck Lance was the bright orange strip of fabric wrapped around the boy’s head.

“Are you Blaytz’s new student?” the boy asked as he looked him up and down.

Lance puffed his chest out as he answered “Yes.” He wasn’t sure if the boy didn’t believe that he could be Blaytz’s student or what but he wasn’t going to let that deter him.

“Okay that’s cool,” the boy said, a wide smile crossing his face as he stuck out his hand. “My name’s Hunk. I live next door to Mr. Blaytz. He’s a little busy right now so he paid me to come pick up you and Mr. Alfor’s student up.”

Lance had decided that Hunk seemed really nice-but wait a second. “Mr. Alfor? Who’s he?”

“Oh, he’s a Fire Master. He and Mr. Blaytz live next to each other and share the garden in between them for teaching. I’m sure you and, uh what was his name again, oh yeah, Keith, will be seeing a lot of each other for the next few years,” Hunk said before looking up the steps and waving at someone. 

“Hey, are you Keith?”

Lance looked up the steps to see who his potential….classmate? No that wasn’t right they surely wouldn’t study together as they had two different elements, and opposites as well. The boy descending down the stairs wasn’t exactly what Lance had expected when he first thought of firebenders. He was a small boy, a good few inches shorter than Lance, with dark hair and a sullen look on his face. The firebenders he knew at home were always exuberant and loud, maybe that’s why he always got along with them. But this boy, well he didn’t seem as excited as Lance was to be here.

“Yeah,” the boy, Keith apparently, said with a nod before looking between the two of them. “And you two are?”

“I’m Hunk and that’s Lance,” Hunk said as he pointed over at Lance. “He’s the student of Mr. Blaytz. The two of you are going to be seeing a lot of each other, I’m sure.”

Keith simply hummed.

“Well we better start heading back. It’s almost dinner,” Hunk said as he started walking down the sidewalk. “Have you guys had anything to eat yet?”

“Nope,” Lance said as he jogged to catch up to Hunk. He fell into step besides Hunk but noticed that Keith seemed to be staying behind them. Maybe he was a little shy.

“So,” Lance said, looking back at Keith, “Are you excited?”

Keith furrowed his brow at him. “About what?”

“Uh, training? Hunk told me that Alfor’s a fire bender, you’re gonna be taught by him right?”

“Oh, uh, yeah I guess,” Keith said with a shrug before moving his eyes to the ground.

Lance wasn’t one to back down from a challenge, Keith was probably just a little offset by the new surroundings and probably homesick as well. Lance sure knew that the gnawing feeling in his chest was just him realizing that this was the first time he would be eating dinner without his family. “So, how old are you? I’m fifteen.”

“Fifteen, almost sixteen,” Keith said, not looking up from the ground at all.

“Are you good at firebending?”

“I don’t know, not really I guess, but that’s why I’m going to a teacher.”

“Oh, okay,” Lance said before turning back around to watch where he was going. Keith seemed a bit rough around the edges, with all his blunt answers and his refusal to look at Lance, but maybe he was really shy.

Lance ended up talking with Hunk for the rest of the walk back. Alfor’s house came up first. Keith darted inside without so much of a goodbye, or a see you later. Lance let out a huff; maybe Keith was just rude, not shy.

“There are the training grounds,” Hunk said, pointing to a fenced in area between the houses. There seemed to be training dummies set up, but what really caught Lance’s eye was the large pond that sat in the middle of it. The water was so smooth and there was even a mini waterfall.

“Well, here’s your stop,” Hunk said, stopping outside the door to Blaytz’s house. “I wish you luck, and I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”

Lance waved after Hunk as he ran next door to his own house before Lance turned back to the door and knocked on it. He held his breath as he heard someone coming towards the door and swung it open.

“Hey, Lance right?” said the burly man who stood at the door. He held out his hand and Lance shook it.

 

“Yep, I’m Lance.”

“Well I’m your new teacher, Blaytz,” he said as she gestured for Lance to come inside. “Sorry I couldn’t come and pick you up. It slipped my mind that you were coming today, and when Alfor reminded me I forgot that I hadn’t set up a room for you yet.”

Lance walked into what he guessed was the kitchen. There was a small table off to the side where two hot meals sat.

“Come and sit down and relax and tell me a bit about yourself Lance,” Blaytz said as he fell down into one chair. “Because starting tomorrow you’re going to be starting a training regimen that will make you a Water Master for sure.”

Lance sat down in front of his food with a wide smile. He had a feeling he and Blaytz were going to get along just fine.

/////

Lance was woken up the next day to a loud, pounding knock on the door.

“Day one of training,” Blaytz bellowed. “Get down to the training area; you’ll get breakfast after we do an evaluation.”

Lance almost muffled a groan until he remembered exactly where he was. He was in about to be trained by a Water Master!

Lance hopped out of bed and pulled on a new shirt before turning to the screen door in his room and pulling it open. It opened up to the training area, Blaytz had told him about it last night claiming that after the first week he would expect Lance to be out there after sunrise every morning unless told otherwise.

Lance felt his smile falter for a second though when he stepped out onto the grass and realized that Keith was also outside as well. Okay, Lance could turn a new leaf; maybe Keith was just tired from a long train ride or something. Based on the fact that they were both outside right now meant they’d probably be training together in the future, or at least in the same place.

“Hey,” Lance said, waving at the other boy who barely glanced his way.

“Hey,” Keith said.

Okay Keith was definitely not someone who was going to be starting a conversation so it looked like this was going to be up to Lance, and maybe while he was at it he could kinda show off to Keith.

“Watch this,” Lance said, only waiting until Keith’s eyes were on him before he turned towards the pond. Holding his hands out he willed the water to move towards him. He watched as the water shot right towards him. He let it hit the palms of his hands before he began to shape it into an orb before manipulating it into an octopus. He had learned the trick a few years ago while trying to entertain his niece.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Lance asked with a smile as he turned to Keith, waiting for applause or at least an acknowledgement that it was a pretty cool trick.

Instead Keith tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that’s an interesting trick, but could you do anything like this though?”

Lance was opening his mouth to defend his “trick” when Keith held up his hand and lit the tips of four of his fingers on fire. That made Lance pause; he’d never seen the firebenders he had known do a trick like that.

“I guess that’s something,” Lance managed to say before scoffing. “But’s it’s not as cool as my octopus.”

“Oh and why’s that?” Keith asked and was that actual emotion in his voice?

“My octopus can do this,” Lance said with a smirk before bending his octopus up in the air like it was floating before moving it over Keith’s lit hand and releasing his hold on the water.

The water fell from the air onto Keith’s lit fingers, extinguishing all of them.

“Hey,” Keith said as he glared up at Lance. “It’s not like my fire can’t do the same to your water.”

“Water puts out fire,” Lance pointed out as Keith got up from the ground.

“Well fire can turn water to steam,” Keith said, crossing his arms.

“We seem to be at an impasse,” Lance said, crossing his arms as well.

“Well I’m going to show that fire is better before my training is up,” Keith said and Lance could just feel the challenge that was being presented.

“Not if I show that water is better first,” Lance said with a smirk. It looks like his time here was about to get a lot more interesting.

/////

“Keith, punch your arm out a little more, you want the fire to be able to travel straight towards your target, not for the ground,” Alfor corrected. After the first day a routine had settled between both sets of teacher and student. However, Lance and Keith always seemed to be trained in the afternoon at the same time. Lance had decided that this was the best time to show Keith up as the better bender.

“Yeah, Keith, punch a little higher,” Lance called out as he got a splash of water straight to the face.

“Focus Lance,” Blaytz said. The two of them were standing in the pond exchanging a ball of water that was progressively getting bigger. “Keep your eyes off Keith and on the water.”

Lance felt the tips of his ears redden and went back to focusing all his attention on the water, though he just knew that Keith was probably snickering at him behind his back.

/////

“You know Lance,” Blaytz said later that night as they ate, “You can just talk to Keith if you want to, there’s no need to keep up this little…what are you calling it?”

“We’re rivals Blaytz, water and fire, it’s poetic,” Lance said as he pointed his fork at Blaytz.

“Uh huh, are you sure you don’t just want to be friends?” Blaytz asked. “I mean, starting tomorrow you guys are going to start sparing about once a month, it helps teach you how to use your element against other elements.”

“Well I guess I’m going to have to beat him tomorrow then,” Lance said, setting his mind to showing Keith just how much better he was at bending.

“It’s not really about beating the other-“

“Too late, I’m going to beat him.”

/////

The following afternoon Lance could practically feel his nerves thrumming as he waited on the training grounds for Keith to come out. Blaytz was still inside finishing his lunch because, unlike Lance, he didn’t inhale his.

Lance was bouncing on his heels when Keith finally came outside with Alfor on his heels.

“Okay than boys, Lance I’m sure Blaytz already told you what’s going on today,” Alfor said as he sat himself down on the deck of his house.

Lance nodded his head as he got up from the ground. He was ready to take Keith on.

“Good, than that means that you both understand that this is a training exercise-” Alfor said as he shot Keith a look. “And not a chance to show off. I want only clean attacks with no possible intent to harm.”

Lance wasn’t so sure how that was going to work with Keith and his fire that literally burned everything it touched but okay, it’s whatever, he’s ready.

Once Blaytz finally came out the two of them got into their starting stances. Lance was ready; he had spent half of the night before planning out his strategy. He was going to go instantly for Keith’s legs and get him off balance. He’d just have to dodge Keith’s first fire attack and then use a water whip to sweep him off his feet.

“Ready,” Blaytz said as he held up his hand. “Set, Go!”

As Blaytz hand went down Keith was already ready his first move, he punched out his one arm and a blaze of fire headed towards Lance. Thanks to Lance’s plan he was already preparing to duck. He easily avoided the flames and moved his hand in a quick motion, which he always thought looked like he was flipping an invisible stone, towards Keith.

A small rope of water splashed out of the pond and towards Keith’s feet.

Keith however managed to jump over it and punched down two small fireballs towards Lance.

Lance quickly moved the water so it was over top of him and extinguished the flames before he could so much as feel their heat.

He rolled off to the side and drew the water to his chest and pushed it towards Keith.

Keith threw a fan of flames up that was large enough to turn his water to steam.

Lance grumbled as he dogged Keith’s next round of fireballs, drawing some more water from the pond and moving it in front of him. He had an idea, it was a kind of stupid idea considering he still was far from perfecting the method, but he had been able to do it once during the two hours of training yesterday so maybe he had a chance to not only beat Keith but also impress Blaytz.

He had to do this quick, and when Keith was off guard, so he threw another water whip Keith’s way and as Keith jumped in the air to avoid it Lance channeled every molecule from within him into turning this water into ice shards. He thought back to the coldest winter he had ever experienced and how it had felt like that the day before when he had turned the water to ice.

Right before Keith hit the ground Lance felt like his veins were turning to ice; now was the time. He threw his hand out and sent a rain of small ice shards towards Keith.

He watched as Keith’s eyes widened as he tried to figure out how he could get around this before Lance clenched his fist and felt his stomach knot up with giddiness as the shards stopped on his command.

They were hanging a mere inch away from Keith and if this had been a fight Keith definitely would’ve been screwed. Lance had totally won this!

“Good job Lance” Alfor said before turning to Blaytz. “Looks like this student of yours can actually think on their toes without being taught.”

“Eh, I picked a better student this time,” Blaytz said with a shrug. “But now that I know that he can actually create ice that’s what he’s going to be working on for the rest of the day.”

Okay, maybe Lance’s plan had backfired on him just a little bit.

/////

The next week Lance stumbled across Keith training. It was late into the night, the only reason Lance was even still up was because he had been given extra chores that night so he could go out the next day with Hunk into the town.

After their spar Lance couldn’t help but think that Keith’s firebending was a little…lackluster. I mean, he could only do like two things with his fire while Lance could do all kinds of different attacks.

Lance however, was quickly taking back those thoughts as he watched Keith train, a little awestruck he will admit because he didn’t think firebenders could be so graceful. All their moves seemed very deliberate, forceful, and a little harsh at times with all the punching and kicking, but as Lance watched Keith out there he couldn’t help but be amazed how fluid his motions were, it almost reminded him of how he bended.

Keith was flowing through his movements as he shot fire from the base of his hand and seemed like he was twirling when he punched his arm out towards the sky and a large flame was thrown out into the air. While the boy did look like he had wallowed around in a fireplace with all the soot he had on him, Lance could almost pretend that he looked like a dancer, dancing around with fire.

And okay wow Lance was getting a bit too close to poetic, looked like it was definitely time for bed. As he walked away he couldn’t help but hope that Keith would go to bed soon, or at least put on a shirt, it was cold out at night.

/////

“Ha, ha, freedom,” Lance cried once he was a block away from the house. “I finally get one free day.”

“Is Keith still training today?” Hunk asked as they headed towards the center market in the town.

“Yeah, I don’t think the boy knows what a break is,” Lance said as he rolled his eyes. “He was still out training last night when I went to sleep, and I had even stayed up later than usual to do some chores.”

“Maybe he’s just really dedicated,” Hunk said with a shrug. “Do you guys get along at least?”

“I don’t know if I would say that,” Lance muttered. “We’re kinda rivals you know.”

“What happened to you wanting to be friends with him?” Hunk asked as he stopped at a booth to look at a scroll they were selling.

“Well after he was so rude to me I just gave up,” Lance said with a huff as he looked over Hunk’s shoulder at the scroll. It was covered in pictures of what Lance figured had to be of earth bending moves.

“I thought we had decided that Keith’s a little shy,” Hunk said as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a small pouch of his money. “I mean, I’ve talked to him a few times when I ran some errands for Alfor, he seems nice, just a little closed off, you know?”

“Well I guess he just doesn’t like me,” Lance said as he watched Hunk pay for the scroll.

“I’m sure the two of you just got off on the wrong foot,” Hunk said as wrapped the scroll back up and tucked it under his arm.

“Uh huh, sure,” Lance said. “So while we’re on the topic of personal problems, have you sent off to any teachers recently?”

“What, oh, no, you know that my parents need help in the shop,” Hunk said with a sigh. “Besides, the last two earth benders I sent a letter to all rejected me, said they weren’t taking students anymore, and they were the closet to home.”

“Still, you can’t just try and learn everything from scrolls.”

“I can try,” Hunk said. “Besides, it’s not like I plan to be some big time bender like you. I’m just going to inherit the shop one day; it’s just useful to at least know the basics of the bending skills I possess.”

“Whatever you say dude,” Lance said as he bumped his shoulder into Hunk. “Hey, let’s stop by that sweet booth, I still can’t get over how good their taffy was.”

/////

It wasn’t until six months into training that Lance and Keith finally bonded and Lance realized he might’ve jumped to the conclusion that Keith was rude a little too quickly.

The two were forced to clean up the training grounds after their last sparing session kind of turned the place into a wreck.

“You stay on this side and I’ll stay on the other,” Lance said as he drew a line in the dirt with one of the many sticks that covered the ground.

“What?” Keith said as he walked over and stood at the line. “There’s stuff over here that a waterbender would be better at cleaning up.”

“I’m sure you can melt the ice off everything with those fire powers of yours,” Lance said, crossing his arms. “You should get to work if you want to be in bed before it gets too dark.”

Lance turned his back to Keith and got to work picking up all the branches and just assumed that Keith had done the same until Keith’s voice broke the quiet air.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

“What, I don’t hate you,” Lance said, pausing in his work to turn around and look at Keith who hadn’t moved from his spot on the line, his hands balled up to fists at his side.

“Well you sure act like it,” Keith said, “Ever since the first day of training you’ve just been…really cold towards me. Like you can’t even stand the fact that I’m here, and you’re always saying things about me when we train-“

“Well you do it too-“

“I’ve said something back to maybe three times, and it’s always after you’ve said something first and I’m just so ticked off that I snap.”

“Well we’re rivals, what are you expecting from me?”

“Wait-what? We’re not rivals. That would imply that we’re trying to beat each other,” Keith said, crossing his arms as he stared at Lance in confusion like he didn’t realize what was going on.

"Uh, yeah we are,” Lance said, dropping the sticks he in his arms to the ground so he could cross his arms. “We’re competing to see who the best bender is, you even said so on like the first day of training”

“Wha-no we’re not,” Keith said. “And besides, we’re two different benders. There’s no way to really compare the two of us if we don’t even bend the same element.”

“We spare against each other,” Lance pointed out.

“Yeah and? It’s not like one of us is always winning, normally the longest one of us has a winning streak is two weeks in a row!”

“So what are you trying say?” Lance asked.

“I don’t know, maybe we could forget these past few months?” Keith offered with a shrug.

“So like, start over again?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s what I’m trying to say,” Keith said with a small nod before sticking out his hand. “I’m Keith and I’m sorry if I ever come across as cold or rude. I’m just kinda…shy around new people.”

“Well I’m Lance,” Lance said as he took Keith’s offered hand. “And if you think this is going to change the fact that we’re rivals you’re wrong. We’re going to be friendly rivals now.”

“What, come on,” Keith said with a groan.

“I said friendly,” Lance said with a laugh. “Now when we spare I won’t aim for your head.”

“Wow, thanks,” Keith said, and was that even a chuckle Lance heard.

“But now that you know what’s going on now you can even start competitions,” Lance said as he dropped back to the ground to pick up the sticks he had dropped earlier.

“Well,” Keith said, bending down to pick up the sticks that fell over onto his side of the line, “If we’re friends now I think you should clear out the ice on this side of the training area.”

“We already drew a line-“

“Friendship means no line,” Keith said with a smirk. “And besides, while you do that I can burn up all the small sticks so we don’t even have to make a pile that one of our teachers will make us clean up later.”

Lance paused for a second. “That-that is a good point.”

“See, teamwork,” Keith said as he shot out a small flame and set the sticks in front of them on fire.

“Ugh fine, you win,” Lance said as he stood up and headed over to the ice that he had frozen the trees with, bending the ice back into water and setting back into the little pond. At least he wouldn’t have to refill the pond now, so maybe Keith wasn’t too bad of a planner, but in Lance’s defense he had just been petty with his at the time rival.

At some point Lance grew tired of the quietness that hung in the air and started up a conversation with Keith.

“So Keith, what made you decide to start training under a Fire Master?” Lance asked as he worked on defrosting the final tree.

When Lance didn’t get an answer he decided to answer the questions first, maybe it would encourage Keith to talk. “Back at home it seems like all my siblings had a specific talent, ya know, I was the youngest so the idea of following in the same footsteps as one of them always seemed like I was copying them or something. So, as I grew older and realized I had a knack for bending water I kinda thought, well that’s something none of my siblings tried to do. So I worked hard on learning everything I could without an actual teacher, and when I saw Blaytz’s ad for a student I knew it was, like, destiny, and well, here I am.”

Lance didn’t get a response for Keith until a few moments later when he was just about to give up on getting a conversation out of the other boy.

“Let’s just say the reason I’m here is because of something happening at the right time and place,” Keith said before falling silent again, and if his answer didn’t sound all mysterious and suspicious to Lance than Lance didn’t know what would.

“Well I’ll be honest, when I first tried talking to you I thought you were shy, it was just when you refused to look at me that I came to the conclusion that you didn’t like me, so uh, sorry ‘bout that. I guess we could’ve been friends earlier on.”

“I mean, it’s not like I tried to be friendly after the first time we met,” Keith said, speaking much quicker than he had before. “So it’s also kinda my fault.”

Keith ended up being the next to ask Lance a question. 

“So, you mentioned something about having siblings? How many do you have?” Keith asked, surprising Lance with such a personal question.

“Oh, three older siblings. One sister and two brothers,” Lance said. “My sister and one of my brothers are also water benders, they’ve just never really tried learning much other than how to move small amounts of water. I really miss them.”

“So you’re close to them?”

“Oh yeah, they’re like, my best friends,” Lance said with a fond smile. He really missed them; and his parents too. He needed to write to them tonight before he forgot again.

“That’s nice,” Keith said, and wow, they had moved from barely talking to small talk, what big steps in one night.

“What about you?” Lance asked. “Do you have any siblings?”

Keith pauses for a second before answering. “Yeah, kinda, he’s more of an adopted brother though.”

“Oh cool, are you guys close?” Lance asks as he finishes up the final frozen tree and bends the water back into the pond.

“Yeah, we’re-we’re pretty close,” Keith says as he finishes stacking up the biggest of the sticks to the side of Alfor’s house. “I just haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Well, we do get a bit of a vacation soon right? Or at least that’s what Blaytz told me. You could go visit him.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Keith said with a tiny smile.

“Well, see you tomorrow at training Keith,” Lance said as he began to head over to Blaytz’s house.

“See you Lance,” Keith said, waving at him before disappearing into the other house.

Maybe the two of them might be able to get along after all.

/////

“I bet I can hit that rock off the ledge of the fence over there,” Lance said, nudging Keith in the side, startling the other boy out of his daze. The two were supposed to be meditating while their teachers ran some errands so that when they got back the two would be successfully centered. Lance had started getting bored ages ago.

Keith followed Lance’s outstretched finger to the rock he was pointing at before snorting. “Yeah right, there’s no way.”

“Oh yeah?” Lance asked raising an eyebrow, he could already feel the competition brewing before it so much as mentioned. “Do you think you could do better?”

Keith raised an eyebrow before shrugging. “I don’t know, but I know you can’t hit that off the fence.”

“Oh yeah,” Lance said with a smirk. “Let’s see who the right one here is then. Go ahead Keith, try it.”

Keith glanced at him before getting up with a sigh. “Let’s do this then.” Keith stood in the same starting position that he did for sparing before pumping his drawled back fist forward and aiming it towards the stone. The little fire ball headed towards the stone but missed it by a mere few centimeters.

Keith glanced back at Lance with a smirk. “Your turn.”

Lance got up with a big smile on his face as he drew a small sphere of water towards him from the pond. He drew his hand back and drew energy from within him before focusing on where the rock sat on the fence. Taking in a deep breath he drew his hand back before lobbing a whip of water towards the stone.

Lance watched as if almost in slow motion the water headed right for the stone, and not only hit it, but sent the stone flying off the fence.

Lance felt his face crack into a wide smile as he turned around to look at Keith who was staring up at him with an open mouth.

“Heh, what do you have to say about that Keith?” Lance asked, crossing his arms as he felt a sense of pride flow through him.

“Nice shooting sharpshooter,” Keith said as he stared up at Lance with wide eyes. “Now I know to never go against you in an accuracy test.”

/////

“Come on Lance, Pidge gets grumpy when she has to wait around,” Hunk said as he weaved between the large crowd with Lance following behind him in tow.

“You guys haven’t seen each other in almost a year, I’m sure she can wait three more seconds so I can buy some food,” Lance said as he took a bite out the candy floss he had bought.

“I don’t know, Pidge can be-“ Hunk said before pausing and waving his hands above his head. “Hey Pidge! Over here!”

A small girl with a mop of messy brown hair looked over at them before waving her hand back just as wildly as Hunk was.

“Hunk!” she cried as soon as she got close enough and launched herself at him for a hug. “I can’t believe you’ve gotten even taller since I last saw you.”

“I’m pretty sure you grew an inch or two as well Pidge,” Hunk said with a chuckle as Pidge made a swipe for his arm.

“And who is this?” Pidge asked, looking past Hunk to look at Lance.

“Oh, that’s Lance, he’s Blaytz’s latest student,” Hunk said as he stepped to the side a little.

“Cool, I’m Pidge,” she said as she stuck her hand out. “I’m an earthbending student a few towns over, but I’m from here.”

Lance took her outstretched hand. “Oh cool, well I’m Lance, like Hunk said, and I’m from a few towns over but studying waterbending here.”

“So, have long have you been in town then?” Pidge asked as they began to head to one of the booths. Right now the town was celebrating its yearly festival. Lance had been so excited when Blaytz had told him he had the day off of training and when Hunk had come by that morning asking him if he had wanted to go hang out with him and his friend, who was visiting, at the festival he had jumped on the chance. Though he was wondering if Keith was at the festival too, or was he training on a day off again.

“Oh, I’ve been here for about…eight months I think,” Lance said as he counted on his fingers how many moons it had been. 

“Yeah and he’s not the only student in town right now,” Hunk said as they paused at one of the scroll stands. “Alfor actually took a student this year too.”

“Really?” Pidge said, pausing in her sorting through the scrolls. “I thought he said he wasn’t going to be taking students anymore after he trained his daughter.”

“I know, that’s why I was surprised when I was told I was going to be picking up two bending students from the station,” Hunk said, but wait-

“Wait, so I was originally going to be training alone?” Lance asked as his brow furrowed, he had never heard Blaytz mention any sort of surprise that Alfor had a student. Thought Alfor had probably told Blaytz in his change of plans, but Lance hadn’t been told that he would be training with other students in the letter he had gotten.

“Oh yeah,” Hunk said. “Alfor has been talking about retiring for years and joked about becoming a recluse or something so everyone was kinda surprised when he took on a student this year.”

“Huh,” Lance mumbled as he watched Hunk unfold a scroll. “Keith’s never really mentioned that, he did say something about how he became Alfor’s student in a kind of weird way though.”

“Who knows, maybe Alfor saw Keith bending or something and was like, I need to train that child,” Hunk said with a giggle before rolling the scroll up. “Already have this one.”

“You know,” Pidge said sliding up next to him. “You could just come and learn from my teacher in the city. He’s looking for another student.”

“Pidge, I’ve already told you it’s too far away,” Hunk said as he put the scroll back and began to walk to the next stall. “Besides, I don’t have as much of an interest in learning all the ins and out of earthbending. I’m fine with inheriting my parents’ shop.”

“That’s what you say but is that how you really feel?” Pidge asked as she pressed her hand over her heart.

“Yeah so drop it,” Hunk said as he paused to look at the little wood carvings at the next stand. “Awww, look how cute these little guys are.”

Lance was about to comment on how one of the statues reminded him of his old teacher when he spotted a familiar blur of red out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey Keith,” Lance called out as he waved at the other boy who stopped and paused when he heard his name.

“Oh, hey Lance,” Keith said as he walked over towards them. “I should’ve known you’d be here.”

“I must say thought, I’m surprised you’re here,” Lance said with a teasing smile as Keith rolled his eyes at him. 

“I was planning on training a bit today,” Keith said, ignoring Lance’s snicker, “But Alfor kinda kicked me out of the house and told me to come here and have some fun.”

“Well it’s a good thing you found us because I’m not so sure you know what fun even is,” Lance joked.

“Oh yes please o’ great Lance, teach me how to have this thing called fun,” Keith said as he crossed his arms and shook his head, though his mouth was quirked up in a half smile.

“Oh hey, who’s this?” Pidge asked as she poked her head around Lance to get a look at Keith.

“This is Keith,” Lance said as Keith waved awkwardly at Pidge. “He’s the student Alfor took in.”

“Oh cool,” Pidge said as she waved back at him. “I’m Pidge, cool meeting you.”

“Hey Lance look at this, it reminds me of that myth you were telling me about the other day,” Hunk said as he turned away from the booth and noticed Keith. “Oh, hey Keith.”

“Hey,” Keith said as Lance looked over at the carving Hunk was talking about.

“Oh man, that really does look like the goddess,” Lance said as he leaned over to examine the carving. There’s an old myth in his village that they’re protected by a sort of water goddess, or spirit as some call her. Those who have claimed to see her say she has the top half of a human with long hair that looked like seaweed and the lower half of an eel, though some have said octopus as well. The statue is beautifully carved and Lance’s fingers itch to look at the price tag but he knows it’s pointless. 

“Dude, you should totally get it,” Hunk said as he elbowed him in the side. “It could be like a little piece of home here. Blaytz gives you a monthly allowance right?”

“Yeah but I know I don’t have enough for it,” Lance said with a shrug as he fidgets with his hands. He hadn’t talked to Hunk about how he’s sent his last two months of allowance back home since both his father and two of his siblings had fallen sick and they couldn’t afford the medicine for all three of them. He had only saved a few coins for himself from an older allowance.

“Aww, that sucks,” Hunk said as he puts down a sculpture he was looking at. “Well, Keith, are you going to hang out with us or go off on your own?”

Keith seemed to pause at that and look between all three of them before shrugging. “Sure, Lance claims he’s going to teach me how to have fun.”

“Haha, I’m sure I could teach you more than Lance ever could,” Pidge said with a smirk as Lance squawked at this claim. “Come on, I’m going to show you how to tick off old man Sendek, he’s this grouchy old man who’s always yelling at kids for bending around him.”

That’s how they ended up watching Pidge bend little rocks to hit Sendek in the back of the head so Keith could light something in front of him on fire. It ended when Lance maybe created a little raincloud over him and Sendek started run around the town square screeching about how he was under attack.

As the four of them fled the scene and hid behind a nearby stall they didn’t bother trying to smother their laughter.

“I-I can’t believe how angry he was,” Lance said with a snicker as he covered his mouth to try and muffle the noise in case Sendek was still on the prowl.

“He always gets angry if he so much as thinks someone is bending,” Pidge said with a giggle. “It’s always hilarious to see his expressions.”

Once they were sure that Sendek had went back to his stand they came out from their hiding spot and went back to looking at all the booths until Pidge had to head home.

“I promised my parents I would spend some time with them today since I’m heading back to the city tomorrow night,” Pidge said as she stole some fire popcorn from Keith, popping it in her mouth as he sent her a look. “But it was cool hanging out with you guys; we should do this again the next time I’m in town.”

It wasn’t too much longer before Hunk had to head back home and Lance decided to walk back with him since he wanted to write a letter to his mom.

“You coming back too?” Lance asked, turning to look back at Keith who seemed to be glancing from Lance to somewhere behind him.

“Nah, I think I’m going to stay out for a little longer, but uh, thanks for letting me hang out with you guys. I think I would’ve been bored out of my mind otherwise,” Keith said, waving at them before heading back into the crowd.

Hunk and Lance headed back home, parting ways at Hunk’s place. Lance waved behind him at Hunk as he headed next door to Blaytz’s. As he opened the door he was greeted by a dark kitchen and figured that Blaytz must have either fallen asleep earlier or was still out at the festival somewhere.

Lance did the few chores he had for the day before heading to his room and flopping down on his bed. He just laid there for a few seconds before rolling over and digging a piece of paper and a pencil out from under the bed to write a letter home.

He was only halfway through the first paragraph when he heard a knock on his door that led outside to the training grounds. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard it, almost falling off his bed in the process. He honestly had no clue who was on the other side of the door, Blaytz would’ve just knocked on the door in the hallway, unless maybe he locked himself out…

Lance climbed out of bed as he heard another knock on the door. “Hold on, I’m coming,” he muttered as he shoved his letter under his pillow.

When he pulled open the door it revealed the last person Lance had expected.

“Keith, what the heck are you doing here man?” Lance said as he stepped a little to the side as an invitation in. Maybe he needed to talk to him about something at the festival or maybe he wanted to brainstorm some techniques that they could use when they sparred against their teachers. 

“I, uh, I’m just dropping in to give something to you,” Keith said as he took a few steps into Lance’s room, looking around as he did so. It was only then when Lance noticed the little package in his hand.

“Is it something from Blaytz?” Lance asked as he closed the door behind him.

“Um, no, it’s, uh, it’s from me to, uh, you” Keith said as he stuck the gift out towards Lance, almost shoving it in his hands.

“Oh, for real?” Lance asked as he took the gift. “Thanks man.”

“It’s uh, it’s nothing,” Keith said with a shrug as Lance untied the string. He honestly couldn’t believe that Keith had gotten him a gift. He hadn’t realized that their friendship was that close, and now Lance kinda felt like he’d have to keep an eye open for something for Keith now.

“I just noticed how you really seemed to be eyeing it while we were at the festival and that you seemed to keep looking back at the stall so,” Keith said before trailing off as Lance unwrapped the gift, letting out a soft gasp when he saw what had been wrapped.

Sitting inside the paper wrappings was the wood carving he had been looking at earlier that day. He couldn’t believe that Keith had even remembered the whole exchange Lance had with Hunk over the carving since he was meeting Pidge and the fact that it had been maybe a total of four sentences exchanged between Hunk and him on the matter. Plus Keith had even noticed how he had glanced back at the stall a few times because he honestly really did want the carving but knew there was no point in looking at it again since he didn’t have the money for it.

“Keith, thank you so much,” Lance said as he felt his face crack into a wide smile as he cradled the carving in his hand. “You didn’t need to do this.”

Keith shrugged. “I mean, you seemed to really want it and I figured I could pass this off as a thank you for, you know, starting over and being my friend even after I was kinda cold towards you-“

“Keith, we’ve already talked about this buddy,” Lance said with a groan, rolling his eyes as he turned the carving over in his hand, feeling the etchings. “It was a mutual, we were both kinda jerks but we’ve forgiven each other and moved past it.”

“I said I was going to pass it off as a thank you,” Keith said. “I just wanted to get you something you dork, and since you liked it so much you know I figured it was a good opportunity. Plus I’m guessing you didn’t just spend your money on stupid things. Besides, I never buy, like, anything so I had plenty for it.”

“Wow thanks Keith,” Lance said as he felt his heart flutter for a second. Keith had done this just as a kind gesture; man Lance had really pegged him wrong when they first met. 

“Ehhh, I’ve heard it’s what friends do,” Keith said as his mouth curved into a half smile.

Lance smiled back before considering a few things in his head. He chose the one he figured would strengthen their friendship the most.

“I sent my money home,” Lance said, sitting onto his bed and setting the craving on his bed stand. “My dad and two of my siblings were sick. They needed some extra help to buy the medicine they needed.”

“Oh, are they, uh, feeling better?” Keith asked, looking very awkward as he stood in the center of Lance’s room.

“Yeah, at least according to my mama’s last letter,” Lance said before patting the spot next to him on the bed. “If you’re going to hang around you should sit down.”

“Oh, uh, I need to do a few more training routines before I head to bed but, uh, maybe another time,” Keith said, giving Lance a half wave before dashing out the door out to the training grounds.

Well that whole exchange was something he had never expected from Keith, not only was a gift given but there was even a hint that meeting up in their rooms at night be more than a one-time thing. Lance was definitely happy about the whole thing; it looked like the two of them had really moved past those first few months of living here, who knows maybe the two of them would become just as close friends as him and Hunk.

Lance pulled his letter back out and finished writing it. He folded it up and put it on his nightstand to send it off tomorrow. He ran a hand over the carving and smiled one last time before falling back onto his bed and falling fast asleep.

/////

“Now Lance,” Blaytz said as he paced back in forth in front of Lance while the latter just sat in the grass watching, “As you know waterbending is all about fluid motion, you want to be flexible like the water, moving freely like it does. I’ve noticed that during certain bending motions you tend to be a bit stiff. We need to teach your body to just be naturally loose while you’re bending-“

Lance began to zone out around there in Blaytz’s lecture. It was getting close to the start of the second year in his training and according to Blaytz this year would be all about building off of the skills he had learned the prior year and learning how to train his body to move faster and better. Lance wasn’t too sure if he was looking forward to three mile run every day and loads of strength training but apparently it was all in his future for this year.

Keith was probably off the wall about how much structured training he would be getting. He was getting a similar lecture from Alfor across the training grounds, although he also looked like he was more interested in staring at the clouds rather than listen to his teacher go over what was in store for the next year.

Lance was able to catch Keith’s eye and the other boy raised his brow at him, silently asking him what the heck he wanted.

Lance glanced quickly over at Blaytz to make sure he wasn’t paying him any attention before looking back and quickly dragging his finger across his neck and stuck his tongue out. He quickly changed his face back to a more passive look before turning back to look at Blaytz and nod at whatever he was saying, something about the training regimen Lance would be doing every day at the start of year two.

Lance glanced back over at Keith who just rolled his eyes at him before looking over at Alfor and back at Lance. A smirk crossed his face before pressing his two hands up to the side of his face and closed his eyes for a quick second before schooling his expression back to normal, and oh Lance knew what was going to happen now.

Glancing over to check that Blaytz was distracted he looked back at Keith and stuck his tongue out at him, signaling the true start of this duel.

Keith somehow managed to catch on and stuck his tongue back in acknowledgement. Lance made his first move.

Sticking his tongue out and crossing his eyes he twirled a finger one either side of his head before changing his expression back to impassive when he noticed Blaytz turning in his pacing back towards facing Lance.

Keith scrunched his nose up, crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue and Lance about burst out laughing at how ridiculous Keith’s normal stoic face was.

He did his best to stifle the laughter and waited until Blaytz went and turned again before he made his next move. Sticking his fingers up next to his head like he was creating some sort of weird looking antlers, he stuck out his tongue and shut his eyes for a split second before returning to his normal posture.

Keith’s next face wasn’t really anything ridiculous, but he did tell Lance that Alfor was apparently going on and on about something based on how he was making his hand move like a mouth and opening and closing his own mouth very exaggeratedly, boredom written all over his face.

Lance still had to stifle a laugh though.

“Are we boring you two?” Alfor said, his voice cutting through the air, nearly making Lance jump out of his skin

“Uhhhhh,” Keith said as he looked over at Lance for help.

“I would suggest choosing your answer wisely as we both saw the two of you goofing off,” Blaytz said, his arms were crossed and he was staring down at Lance with the same look he had given him when he had caught Lance trying to sneak out to go meet up with Hunk.

“Uh, well we were,” Lance said, stumbling over his words before glancing over at Keith and begging for help or at least some back-up.

“We were, um, communicating non-verbally to each other?” Keith offered before sending Lance a look of fear.

“By making funny faces at each other?” Alfor asked.

“Uh, yeah, it’s uh, all the rage with the teens now a days,” Lance said with an awkward laugh, they were dead.

“Uh huh,” Alfor said as he stared down the two of them. “Well you shouldn’t have been talking anyway when you’re being lectured. I hope we’re not going to have to draw a line down the center of the training ground for you two.”

“You know us rambunctious teens,” Keith said with a somehow even more awkward laugh than Lance.

“Uh huh, give me thirty sit-ups while I finish my lecture,” Alfor said.

Keith sent Lance one more pleading look before laying down to carry out his punishment.

“Okay then Lance, back to your training schedule, or else you’ll be joining Keith.”

“Of course teach, won’t happen again.”

It happened again the next week, this time the two of them had to go on a mile run. While their teachers chased after them.

/////

The first year of his training Lance hadn’t done much outside training on his own, mainly because it had all just come so naturally to him and he was always dead tired by the end of the day. However, after starting his second year under Blaytz’s teachings did he realize maybe it was time to put some extra time in after class, sometimes he even had Keith’s company if he trained late enough at night.

Today though he had decided to come out after doing his chores in the small amount of time he had before dinner. For most of training that day Blaytz had been calling him out for being too stiff when he was moving around and fighting, claiming that Lance looked about as moveable as a rock.

This was why Lance was outside jumping around and ducking away from an imaginary attacker all while also working on his ice attacks as well. Freezing and unfreezing the water all while doing his best to chant a mantra in his head, be like the water your bending, to move just as fluidly as it is leaving your hand.

He let his feet dance around as he loosened his body with each attack he threw, letting himself become as swift moving and fluid as the water. He jumped into the air to avoid his invisible attacker and sent down a swift kick of his leg, sending down a spray of water before landing on his feet.

Taking a deep breath he steadied his stance and took a deep breath. Time to start again.

/////

“Ugh, I don’t want to spar against Blaytz ever again,” Lance whined as he rubbed his head, there was still the tinge of pain from when he hit his head against a tree trying to dodge Blaytz’s attack.

“At least you don’t have to constantly worry about your clothes catching on fire,” Keith said from where he was lying flat on the floor of Lance’s room. His eyes were closed and he honestly kinda looked like he had been punched out cold or something. “I caught on fire twice during today’s sparring match.”

“It doesn’t help that they’re like ten times better than us and like thirty years older than us too,” Lance said with a huff. “We’ll never be able to beat them.”

“Isn’t the point of training with them though is to become as strong as them?” Keith asked from the ground, his eyes were still closed. “So hypothetically we should be able to beat them or at least draw against by the time our three years are up.”

“That’s a nice thought Keith,” Lance said with a sigh as his hand reached over onto the nightstand to grab the carving that was sitting on it. Ever since Keith had gotten it for him it had become something he fidgeted with often.

Keith let out a tiny huff from the ground. “Who’s the one always saying let’s try and be optimistic?”

“That Lance went back to his parents’ house,” Lance said as he ran his thumb over the etchings. “He isn’t getting his butt kicked.”

“It’s not that bad, I mean it could probably be worse.”

“Woah, did Keith get replaced by optimistic Lance or something?”

“Nah, Keith just hung around with optimistic Lance for too long and it began to rub off on him,” Keith said, opening one eye.

“He’s such a loser thought,” Lance said, a smile on his lips as he rolled the carving around in his hand as he waited for Keith’s response.

“I don’t know, I kinda like the guy,” Keith said. “We’re pretty good friends.”

“Awww Keith, you really are a big softy underneath all those layers of grumpy,” Lance said, laughing loudly as Keith threw a pillow that had fallen on the floor at Lance.

“Oh shut it,” Keith said, now sitting up and crossed legged. “This is coming from the guy who started crying the other day when he thought too long about turtles flipped over onto their shells.”

“How do they flip themselves back over Keith? Huh, tell me if this idea doesn’t frighten you to the core,” Lance said, leaning off the bed to look down at Keith. “Help me sleep again at nights.”

“I don’t know, they get another turtle to come and flip them over.”

“See, now I can sleep easy tonight knowing that turtles are the real pal in the animal world.”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t stopping you considering I can hear you snoring from all the way next door,” Keith said with a smirk that Lance used as the target for his pillow.

“Okay, but like back to us getting our butts kicked while sparing our teachers,” Lance said after he had hit Keith square in the face and the other boy had squawked like a chicken before throwing the pillow right back at Lance.

“What, do you want to make some kind of plan or strategy?” Keith asked from the floor, now Lance knew that Keith was joking by the light tone of his voice but it was a good idea.

“Keith you’re a genius,” Lance said as he shot straight up in his bed. “We should work together to take down our teachers!”

“And by take down do you mean surprise them that we would actually actively plot against them?”

“No, I mean like we make a strategy that we can use if the one of us is ever in a tight spot while sparring against them,” Lance said, his brain now filled with ideas, all running around trying to decide which one is better. “We’re going to need a code word, so we know when to do it.”

“How about we just say the other person’s name, you know, whoever needs the help, say it’s me who needs the help so I would say Lance,” Keith said, and Lance was honestly surprised by how quick Keith was jumping onto this idea.

“I don’t know I think we need something else too,” Lance said, tapping his chin before the idea came to him. “How about we say the others element as well, like, Keith fire me!”

“Fire you?” Keith said before busting up laughing. “That sounds kinda dumb.”

“Well do you have a better idea, genius?” Lance asked, waiting for Keith’s giggle fit to end.

“I didn’t say we shouldn’t use just that it sounds ridiculous, fire me,” Keith said before cracking up even harder. “Lance, water me-no, wet me!”

“Keith no!” Lance squeaked as he watched Keith fall back to floor in a fit giggles, clutching his chest, and okay wow he had never seen this side of Keith it was kinda, well it was nice and it kinda made his stomach do a flip but then Keith started to mumble “wet me” to himself and the moment broke.

“Hahaha, you’re so funny,” Lance said as he sat back onto his bed. “We gotta get serious.”

“Oh please, you know it was funny Lance,” Keith said from where he lay on the ground, still occasionally chuckling to himself.

“Maybe if I hadn’t been part of the punchline it would’ve been funnier,” Lance said.

“So if I, per say, made a joke about Blaytz-“

“Nope, no, nope, not going there,” Lance said, shaking his head. “Back to strategy.”

“Uh huh, you just don’t want me to say that I bet Alfor once said something like-“

“So Keith, what’s the plan gonna be buddy?” Lance said, cutting off Keith’s lovely suggestion because knowing Blaytz he would most definitely hear it and Lance wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Blaytz’s reaction to Keith’s joke.

“Okay, okay, so are we going to have a different attack plan each time or are we going to come up with one joint attack?” Keith asked, sitting up from the floor and hugging his knees to his chest.

“I mean, a joint attack would probably be best since it’s only one thing to remember,” Lance said as he rested his chin on his hand. What could they do? The best thing to do would be to bring their two bending powers together but Lance didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do.

Keith hummed from the floor. “So we want one move each to equal one attack at against them?”

“Yeah but we have to make sure it isn’t something that could hurt them or anything. Just something to throw them off guard so we can beat them,” Lance said before the two fell back into silence as they tried to figure out some way to reach their goal. Lance had considered if maybe they just both send an attack after the other’s teacher but that didn’t seem like a good idea. Their teachers could easily dodge the attack most likely.

It wasn’t until Lance remembered how on the first day of training he and Keith had been doing the whole, who’s bending was better and he remembered how when their two elements had combined it had created steam.

“Oh, oh, I have an idea!” Lance said as he leaned closer to the edge of his bed.

“What is it?” Keith asked, letting go of his knees and letting his legs lay out on the floor.

“So you remember than one time that we were arguing over who had the best bending, well we were able to create steam when we combined our elements. So I was thinking we could do that, but on like, a whole lot bigger of a scale.”

“So, a smoke screen pretty much,” Keith said as he seemed to the turn the idea over in his head. “That would definitely work. Not only would it probably make them pause for a second but we’d also be able to have a screen of cover to take them down.”

“See, great plan,” Lance said. “Now we just have to wait a month to try it out.”

“We could try practicing a few times after day training,” Keith suggested.

“Nah, they could potentially see us and begin to suspect something, plus we already practice so much,” Lance said, dramatically flopping back on his bed, smiling slightly when Keith laughed.

“Whatever you say, but you were the one that stayed out an extra hour the other day practicing your footwork.”

“Cause yours looks so much better, it’s like your dancing on the air, maybe you should’ve been an air bender,” Lance said, though he really couldn’t imagine Keith being anything other than a fire bender.

“Considering that Blaytz was complimenting you the other day on how it improved it’s safe to say you improved.”

“Hmm, yeah,” Lance said, rolling over onto his stomach when he remembered what Hunk had told him the other day. “Hunk and I are planning to go into town tomorrow night to watch a play the town’s putting on. I think it’s supposed to be about how the world was created or how humans got bending powers.”

“Hmm, cool, I think I take a little time off of practicing.”

“I’d hope so,” Lance said with a chuckle. “So we’ll try out our plan next month when we spar against them again, cool?”

“Cool with me,” Keith said. “So now are you going to finally tell me the story of how your niece found out she was a bender.

“Oh yeah, I only got the letter the other day from my sister but oh my gosh Keith I can’t believe I missed it!”

/////

“So dude,” Hunk began as Lance finally finished slicing down another one of Hunk’s rock dummies. While it was normally Lance who was the one practicing while Hunk occasionally kept him company, today Hunk was getting some practice in too. “How are you and Keith doing?”

“Uh pretty good,” Lance said as he wiped off the sweat that clung to his forehead. That had been the fifth rock dummy he had taken down. He was currently working on the power of his water whip; Blaytz was able to cut through solid rock in one swipe, right now it took Lance about seven before it finally crumbled. “I told you already how we made up and have become pretty good friends; we hang out pretty much every night.”

“Uh huh,” Hunk said as he recreated the dummy from the pile of rocks. “That was a good one, you’ve moved down from nine strikes to seven.”

“Thanks,” Lance said as he put himself back into his stance. “You’re doing a pretty good job of keeping these things coming.”

Lance sent the first water whip with a kick of his leg; right now he was finding that they were the stronger ones. It left a deep cut into the left side of the dummy but it certainly wasn’t about to budge.

“So, what brought you to the whole Keith thing?” Lance asked as he sent another water whip, this time with a swift movement of his hand.

“Oh, just uh, how you were acting around him at the play the other day,” Hunk said as Lance landed a good hit to the dummy’s middle. Maybe he should start asking Hunk if there was the possibility of making the dummies move.

“Uh, what do you mean?” Lance asked, glancing over at where Hunk sat on the porch of Blaytz’s house. “I was acting like how I do around my friends, around you.”

“Oh, really?” Hunk asked and Lance could just hear Hunk’s “I’m not buying it” tone.

“Yeah, really,” Lance said, sending out another water whip that made one of the cuts in the dummy’s side even deeper.

“Well I mean, you were kinda staring at him a lot.”

“He has a terrible hairstyle, it’s hard not to look,” Lance said, despite the fact that he had grown accustom to the old hairstyle after a while, he brought down his final blow to make the dummy crumble before adding, “Plus he kept making these funny faces while watching the play. Apparently he’d never heard of that story before and it was pretty funny watching his whole face journey through the entire thing.”

“Hmm, okay,” Hunk hummed, creating another dummy before Lance could make another comment about how he was obviously trying to get something from Lance.

After he had dealt his first hit to the dummy Lance decided to put Hunk in the hot seat. “So I got a letter from Pidge the other day, she wants to know whether or not you’ve been considering applying for her teacher’s opening.”

“Like I told her, I have no interest,” Hunk said before bending a few pebbles to float above his hand. “Maybe I should start shooting these rocks at you to up the difficulty level.”

“Okay, okay I get it, you don’t want to talk about it,” Lance said, letting out a sigh of relief when Hunk dropped the pebbles.

“I don’t have any real interest in pushing my bending powers,” Hunk said as Lance went back to attacking the dummy. “Besides, I’m going to be starting an apprenticeship next  
month.”

“Woah, seriously?” Lance said, spinning around on his feet to look back at Hunk.

“Yeah, there’s an engineer that Alfor is friends with that lives on the edge of town. His name’s Coran and he creates all these cool things, like right now he’s trying to figure out how to make a new way to travel through the air with the same coal power as trains! He showed me the plans he’s made so far and Lance it’s so cool!” Hunk said, a wide smile on his face. Lance was happy to see his friend talking happily about his future, he had never seemed that happy whenever he talked about inheriting his parents’ shop, just like when he talked about bending; it looked like he had finally found something that was going to make him happy.

“You’re going to need to tell me all about it once you start,” Lance said, a large smile on his face before he turned back to the dummy.

“Time for you to make up for all the times I’ve listened to you talk about the correct starting stance and hand angles.”

“Oh please I’m not that bad, Keith might be but not me,” Lance said, ignoring the look that Hunk probably sent him at the mention of Keith.

“Well just know soon it’s going to be your turn to listen to me talk about something you know nothing about.”

“And I love every minute of it,” Lance said as he brought down the dummy with only five strikes, a wide smile on his face. “Every minute.”

/////

The day had finally come, the day that Lance had been waiting a whole three months for. He and Keith were going to finally use the strategy they had come up with months ago. They had skipped trying it out the last two times they sparred against their teachers just due to the fact that they had never been able to find the right opportunity to do it. But they were for sure going to try it out this time.

At exactly one in the afternoon they four of them came outside to the training ground. Each student and teacher pair took their side of the grounds and took their stances and readied themselves for the fight.

Keith had been the first to make a move, diving for Alfor’s side. His and Alfor’s spars always ended up starting off as mainly hand to hand before they introduced bending to it. His and Blaytz however were bending all throughout.

Lance didn’t have time to watch Keith spar however. He was narrowly able to dodge a shot of water that had been aimed for his head. He swept his body away from the shot and grabbed hold of the water that had been shot at him and sent it back at Blaytz; however he aimed for Blaytz’s stomach.

He rolled to the left and drew some water from the pond to circle around him for constant ammo. Before he could send the first wave of ice shards Blaytz’s way his teacher was sending a water whip for his feet.

Lance jumped out of the way and sent a wave of ice shards for Blaytz’s chest.

Blaytz however easily changed the ice to water; letting the droplets fall to the ground all while he sent a whip of water towards Lance’s legs.

Lance jumped out of the way of the attack before sending two waves of ice shards one after another towards Blaytz.

Blaytz jumped out of the way and soon a barrage of ice and water was being traded between the two as the other tried to wear the other out. Ever since Lance had been working on his footwork Blaytz wasn’t able to just wait for him to be a little off balance to take Lance down. Now he had to actually spar against Lance.

Lance was becoming absorbed in the motions when he heard Keith calling out to him. He dodged the attack that Blaytz had sent at him before glancing over at Keith who was currently backed up against a tree with Alfor closing the gap between them quickly.

What Keith said next would haunt Lance for the next few months to come.

“Wet me!”

Now of course was not the time to bust out into side splitting laughter because while Lance might not have found it too humorous when they were planning it, it was pretty funny seeing it happen in the context all while Keith kept a straight face.

Blaytz must have decided that Lance had been caught off guard and sent towards Lance what could’ve been a finishing move, but instead it was exactly what Lance needed, a large wave of water.

“Coming your way!” Lance yelled back at Keith before grabbing control of the large wave of water and sending directly towards Keith. He managed to catch the surprised look on Alfor’s face before Keith sent out a large burst of flames. The water and flames met and exploded into a spray of steam that settled around them like a fog, and in that time Lance and Keith used their teachers’ surprise against them.

Lance lay low to the ground as he headed right towards where Blaytz stood. He drew a large ball of water from behind him, letting it hover behind him so it would have the best velocity for his attack.

He watched as the steam began to subside, most likely due to Blaytz pulling it out of the air, which gave Lance the perfect opening, his teacher was distracted. Lance lunged forward towards where Blaytz figure stood; he drew the water out from behind him and over his head straight for Blaytz’s chest.

The water hit his target square one and before Blaytz could think to attack Lance froze the water around him, freezing his arms to his side.

Lance got rid of the rest of the fog before sending his teacher a wide smile. “I win this time.”

“Only because you and Keith were apparently plotting against us,” Blaytz said as Lance unfroze the water from around his arms.

“Don’t think you’ll be able to fool us next time,” Alfor said, walking over towards them with his hands behind his back, based on Keith’s wide smile and Alfor’s sour expression it looked like Keith had won his match as well.

“I do have to compliment you two on working together though,” Blaytz said. “When you first came in the two of you seemed to be at each others’ necks. Now look at you, planning to take us down together. If you two ever end up fighting someone together that would be a good move if you needed to take them down quickly or make an escape.”

“What Blaytz is trying to say in a whole paragraph is, we’re proud of how far you two have come, but if you ever try that again I’m never letting the two of you spar against us at the same time.”

Both of them laughed at that, and Lance turned to say something to Keith only to pause and feel his mouth dry up and his stomach drop. He forgot completely what he had been planning to say but couldn’t help but feel like his entire face was on fire as he looked at Keith’s laughing face.

As he felt like his entire stomach exploded into butterflies he couldn’t help but think, oh no, Hunk might have been onto something because he’s pretty sure he shouldn’t be feeling that Keith’s laugh is one of the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard if they’re just friends.

/////

“No, no, no, that’s not right,” Lance muttered, staring down at his arm as he tried to figure out exactly how he wanted this move to look, plus he needed to figure just how big it could be without tiring himself out too much.

The sand he was sitting on shifted under him as he rocked from side to side, thinking this all out, recently he had to move out to the nearby beach for training outside of Blaytz’s teachings. Mainly this was due to the fact he wanted to work on different moves that needed more water and more space, but he had decided to be out at the beach full time simply because training on the grounds had…distractions.

Ever since that one sparing session against their teachers two months ago, when the two had used their combining method, Lance had realized that his feelings for Keith had been changing. When he had first felt that swoop in his stomach he had just figured it had been because of what Hunk had said, but as time progressed that theory was proved wrong. Whenever Keith would so much as smile at him Lance felt his stomach tie up in knots-

No, nope, this was not the time to be thinking about all those confusing feelings about Keith; he couldn’t do this unless he focused. Taking a deep breath to center himself, Lance held him hands out in front of him and began to move them back and forth like the waves of the ocean. He felt as a connection began to form between him and the ocean, he could feel the ebb and flow of the tides, it felt like his senses were heightened.

He took one more deep breath before drawing his hands to his chest, just as Blaytz had instructed him during training that day, before imagining the wave he wanted to create. Lance sent him hands outwards in a wave like moving, his eyes clenched shut as the sound of the moving water filled his ears.

Opening one eye he saw that he had created exactly what he wanted, above him towered two large waves. A large smile crossed his face; he was definitely getting pretty dang good at this waterbending thing.

/////

“D-did you see the look on Alfor’s face when I did that thought?” Keith asked between bubbles of laughter.

“I know,” Lance said before bursting out laughing as well. “I-I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alfor loose his cool like that!”

“I mean-“ Keith began before being cut off by a loud laugh that made Lance’s heart do a somersault, “In his defense the bolt of lightning had been aimed for his head.”

Lance waited for his laughter to subside before saying anything else. “I mean, when I showed Blaytz my first really big wave I nearly drowned him with it but he was still patting me on the back and telling me how proud he was.”

“Yeah, but, this is different from that,” Keith said as the corners of his mouth began to quirk down, “You had planned that, this had just been some kind of….freak thing. I haven’t even been able to make so much as static since then.”

“Awww come, you just have to practice now,” Lance said, feeling his smile drop as well. “Now that you know you can do it, I’m sure you can find time in your very busy training schedule.”

“Ha, yeah I’m sure I can,” Keith said, and good he no longer looked like he was frowning.

“I mean, we’re talking about the guy who does a warm-up for his warm-up,” Lance teased, his own grin back in full force.

“That’s being said by the guy who goes down to the beach every day to train after we finish normal training,” Keith teased right back, too bad for him he didn’t know why Lance was even doing that.

“I need a lot of water,” Lance said, grabbing onto his ankles and leaning forward. “You just need air or something.”

“Hmph or something,” Keith said with that stupid half smile that made Lance’s brain short circuit, it wasn’t fair that Keith had this stupid charm over Lance that he didn’t even know about. “So how are you’re siblings?”

Lance smiled at the change of topic, about once a week Keith asked about how Lance’s family was, it always warmed Lance’s heart that it seemed that Keith really did generally want to learn more about him. Though Lance had a sneaking suspicion that Keith had just figured out how homesick Lance got sometimes and was giving him another outlet besides Hunk to talk to it about, either way it made Lance happy and didn’t help this stupid crush he had on him.

“They’re doing pretty good; there wasn’t much of an update in this week’s letter. It was mainly my mama talking about our town’s festival and how she entered into this completion they have for local goods. My mama knitted a blanket because apparently her rival in this competition knitted one last year and beat mama out,” Lance said, there hadn’t been much else in the letter other than the festival and the usual checking up on him and telling him to keep up the good work. Sometimes when he wrote about Hunk or Keith she’d write them a little note as well.

“Hmmm, did she win?” Keith asked, tilting his head to the side and he needed to stop being excessively cute or it might begin to show on Lance’s face how humongo of a crush he had on Keith.

“Oh yeah, there was a good paragraph describing what Mrs. Plinksyi’s face looked like, she’s the rival I told you about, she’s pretty proud about it, she did say that she wants so send it up to me so I have another piece of home or whatever.”

“That’s nice,” Keith said, resting his cheek on his knee. “That she won and she’s sending you the blanket.”

“Hmm, yeah,” Lance said, smiling to himself before he remembered what he had decided he wanted to do with the blanket. “I was figuring I could give it to you though, since, well it’s going to be winter soon and while I have like twenty blankets from home, you only have the one sheet.”

“Lance, first off it’s your blanket that your mama made-“

“It’s not like she made it in mind for me,” Lance pointed out before Keith could try to duck out on another gift Lance was trying to give him. It was only fair, Keith had gotten Lance a gift and Lance still hadn’t given him anything, and he knew how bare Keith’s room looked. It really needs some personal touches.

“Fine, second point, I’m a fire bender, I don’t get cold,” Keith said, staring very pointedly at Lance. “So I don’t need a blanket, you however get cold at the drop of a hat.”

“Let’s see if you still say that after I freeze you into a block of ice.”

“I mean, I could probably just melt it all off.”

“Don’t test me to try that theory out,” Lance said as Keith rolled his eyes.

“You’re still getting the blanket by the way.”

/////

Keith did in fact get the blanket, but he honestly had no room to argue considering it had been a design that screamed fire bender. His mama said in her letter that she sent with it that she had been inspired by Lance’s stories of Keith and his bending (mainly because he was half on the fence on telling Hunk his revelation because while Hunk was his best friend he would also probably tell Lance he told him so and proceed to embarrass him whenever Keith was within twenty feet of them). So when Lance had pulled out the blanket that had twisting and turnings of orange and yellow and red all throughout it he knew that there was little room for Keith to argue.

Lance had felt his chest warm up when he visited Keith’s room a week later and saw it spread out across his bed, finally there was some color to his room.

/////

“I told you so!” Hunk cried triumphantly. 

“Hunk please I know,” Lance groaned as he pressed his hands against his face. He had made the choice to finally tell Hunk about his embarrassingly large crush on Keith, it had gone exactly as he had expected. “You’re making this even harder for me.” 

“I mean, buddy, it was kinda inevitable, even before you got a crush on him you were always talking about him. Like you talk about three main topics, your family, bending, and Keith,” Hunk said as he counted each topic off on his fingers. “I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me this sooner.”

“Why?” Lance groaned. “It’s not like you knowing would really help me any, plus I avoided telling for this very exact reason. I knew you were going to rub it in my face that you were right.”

“I’m not rubbing it in your face,” Hunk said, pointing a finger at Lance. “I’m just reminding you that I told you so.”

“Uh huh,” Lance said as he let his back hit the rock, the two were up by the cliff so that Lance could get some training in while waiting for Hunk to get done with his apprenticeship for the day. “You’re being very gracious about being right.”

“I always am,” Hunk said with a shrug. “Anyway, now that you have finally come to terms with how you feel I think we should begin brainstorming how you’re going to confess-“

“Woah, woah, woah, no way am I about to tell Keith how I feel,” Lance said, sitting straight up and bringing his hand to his chest. “That’s not even a thought that had floated through my head.”

“Lance, you like him, why wouldn’t you want to try out a relationship with him?”

“It’s all just too complicated right now,” Lance said, letting himself fall back against the rock. “We’re both focusing almost all of our time to learning everything we possibly can about our bending. Even if Keith did like me back it would add extra stress to our lives, and if it ends badly because of that we might not even be friends anymore!”

“Lance I think you might be slightly overreacting,” Hunk said, but what did Hunk know about relationships, he was just like Lance, he had never really dated anyone before. How could he even know if Lance was wrong? “I’m sure you guys would be able to figure it all out.”

“Listen, Hunk, you’re my best friend and I trust you with my life, but I don’t think I can just tell Keith how I feel, at least not now. Maybe once we’re done with training and I still like him, maybe, but that’s a long way away.” Lance heard Hunk sigh once he had finished.

“Okay bud, whatever you say,” Hunk said, placing his hand on Lance’ shoulder. “Just know that I’ll always be here for you if you need someone to talk to.”

“Thanks Hunk,” Lance said, smiling up at his friend before making a quick subject change. “So how’s the apprenticeship going?” That would keep Hunk busy for a good ten minutes and they could finally get off this whole Keith topic. It was just a crush, Lance had plenty before Keith. He’d get over it soon enough if he just gave it some space.

“Oh, it’s going great,” Hunk said, getting that far off twinkle in his eye, he really did love talking about this. “Right now I’m helping Coran out with two requests he’s gotten. There’s one where they want a way to create lightening out of thin air, though what we’ve created is a glove that’s able to create a large enough electrical charge to knock out a grown man out cold but, eh, details. Oh and the design was so hard because Coran wanted me to try and make a design for it first before he did and I knew it had to be big enough to hold everything that was needed to create an electric charge but still small enough to be transported around easily-“

“Wait, so is this like, a weapon or something for people without bending?” Lance asked, the idea seemed pretty cool but he wasn’t sure how safe it was.

“I guess, I don’t really know,” Hunk said. “I’m pretty sure the guy who requested them was a police officer and wanted to create a way for non-bending police to deal with benders. But anyway Coran ended up being super impressed with my idea to turn it into a glove and just adjusted a few things and boom; we started making prototypes based on my design!”

“Wow buddy, see I’ve always told you that you’re talented!” Lance said, patting Hunk on the shoulder. Dang, his friend was going to own some mega-famous corporation someday. “So what’s the other thing you’ve been working on?” 

As Hunk kept talking about the other thing he was working on, a new kind of engine, Lance couldn’t help but feel this was so much better than talking about Keith, earlier his hands had gotten all sweaty and his heart had been beating so fast it felt like it was going to come straight out of his chest. Gods he really hopes this crush passes quickly before he ends up doing something stupid.

/////

“So Keith, what do you think about this?!” Lance said, dramatically throwing his arms up in the air as he called for water to come and encircle his arms.

“I think you look ridiculous with those wiggly arms,” Keith said with a snicker. “They remind me of octopus arms.”

“You mean tentacles?”

“Oh whatever, you know what I mean,” Keith said, rolling his eyes before he got that twinkle in his eye that always spelled trouble.

“What are you up to Keith?” Lance asked, knowing that he probably looked ridiculous asking Keith a question in such a serious tone while have octopus arms made of water moving all around.

“Oh you know just wondering about what your reaction would be to this,” Keith said, jumping up from the ground, as he said this he managed to kick his feet out in a way that they were pointed up towards the sky and shot out two flumes of fire out of the bottom of his feet.

Lance almost felt his jaw drop at that, he had never seen Keith bend fire out of his feet before, and he had to admit it had been pretty cool but there was no way he was going to let Keith see his surprise. “Better be careful using that move in an actually fight, I could’ve easily swiped your hands out from under you.”

“Like you’d ever do that to me,” Keith said, rolling his eyes, though the half smile made an appearance on his face.

“Just don’t go pulling that move during a sparring session, or I might just try it out,” Lance teased as Keith playfully shoved his arms. “Oh but hey, I bet this is a surprise,” Lance said suddenly as he pulled out all of the water from the pond and brought it to his legs, pushing him up a few feet into the air. He looked down at Keith with a grin who was definitely staring up at him with an open mouth, ha victory. 

“Now you really are a baby compared to me,” Lance teased as he watched Keith shake his head.

“Oh really, well what do you think about this?” Keith yelled before pointing two fingers up to the sky and a small bolt of lightning shot out of his fingers and up into the sky.

“Holy crap, you finally learned how to control it?!” Lance cried, brining himself back to the ground. “Dude when did you figure it out?”

“Only a few days ago,” Keith said, an actual for real full mouth smile, not his usual half one, “I’ve been waiting for the best way to surprise you with it.”

“Ha, well consider me surprised! Man you’ve been practicing for months.”

“Ugh I know, Alfor says I’m going to have to keep training if I want to make it any stronger though,” Keith said. “So once again I’ll be back to meditating and try to create some kind of electricity.”

“Hmmm, since we’re showing off there’s one thing I want to show you,” Lance said, grabbing Keith’s hand without a second thought and pulling him down towards the beach. Keith let himself be dragged with no complainant and within minutes they were surrounded by salty sea air.

“Okay, okay, you have got to watch this,” Lance said, practically bouncing up and down because he still hadn’t shown Blaytz this yet. Keith’s reaction would be a good gauge to how Blaytz would react though. He’s spent the last two months working on this, mainly to improve his skills, but also for the purpose of showing off just a little bit.

Taking a deep breath Lance placed one foot down onto the water, freezing the spot of water under his foot, but it didn’t stop there. The ice kept spreading and spreading as with each passing second Lance felt as if his body was getting colder and colder before he felt like he was about to start shivering and stopped. Lance looked out over his handiwork and smiled, he had managed to freeze over the whole inlet.

He turned back to Keith and spread his arms out wide. “Ta-da!”

Keith stared at him with a wide mouth. “Okay you win.”

“What exactly did I win?” Lance asked with a chuckle, he couldn’t help but revel in the fact that he had impressed Keith.

“I don’t know, you just won,” Keith said, shrugging his shoulders as a grin spread across his face. “This is pretty amazing.”

“Well I try,” Lance said, as he pressed his hand to his chest. “I just can’t believe I impressed Mr. Stoic Keith.”

“You impress me a lot more often than you think.”

Wait-what the heck?! Lace felt his brain potentially short circuit, had Keith just-had he just?

“You’re a great bender Lance, don’t try and talk yourself down so much,” Keith said, and holy gods was he blushing?!

“Oh, uh, yeah thanks,” Lance managed to stutter out as he felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest, that couldn’t be healthy. “Th-thanks, you too dude.”

“Thanks, and no problem,” Keith said, nudging Lance’s arm with his elbow. “Now come on, we should get back before Alfor and Blaytz come after us.”

Lance nodded and followed after Keith, almost tripping over his own two feet as his mind kept replaying “You impress me more than you think,” over and over all while adding stupid sparkles and roses and giving Keith a stupid soft smile and a blush and oh boy this was getting out of control. 

/////

“Owww,” came a hushed whisper outside of Lance’s door.

He rolled over in his bed to see a Keith shaped outline through his door who just so happened to be carrying a small flame in their palm.

“Keith, what are you doing trying to get into my room in the middle of the night?” Lance mumbled as he rolled out of bed to see Keith standing at his door, fully dressed, with a coat on for once, and rubbing his head with his one free hand.

“Didn’t you hear Alfor and Blaytz talking about how there’s some star shower happening tonight?” Keith asked, his brow knitting together like they had somehow planned this whole thing and Lance was the one who looked ridiculous right now.

“Uh, no,” Lance said with a shrug. “I was, uh, kinda distracted.” And totally not staring at Keith’s stupid hair and thinking about soft it looked.

“Well come on,” Keith whisper yelled. “Get dressed; we need to get a good spot to watch it.” Keith pushed him back into his room and shut the door behind him, presumably to wait for Lance to change.

“Fine, fine,” Lance said as he dug through his pile of clothes and pulled out a pair of pants. He tugged them on before grabbing his coat. He began pulling on the sleeves as he opened the door. “Well, lead the way.”

Lance caught a glimpse of Keith’s smile before he turned around and starting heading towards the fence that surrounded the two houses. Lance shivered as the cold air nipped at his nose and ears, dang he knew he should’ve brought a hat or something. He was going to freeze to death in these December winds before he could so much as see a single star fall.

He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets as Keith slowly unlatched the gate door, if you opened it too quickly it would squeak super loud and Lance was guessing Alfor had told Keith that he couldn’t go out.

Lance closed the door halfway behind him, leaving enough of a crack that they didn’t have to worry about unlocking it, but enough that if someone happened to look out while they were gone they wouldn’t be suspicious. 

“So what exactly is this star shower thing?” Lance asked as he fell into step with Keith. They were headed down the dirt path to the beach, guided by Keith’s little ball of fire since the moonless night didn’t give off much light.

“It’s apparently this thing that happens every twenty years or something,” Keith said as he stepped over a fallen log that no had ever bothered to clear despite how it looked like it had been on the well-traveled path for years. “Alfor described it as some kind of astral phenomenon. Apparently his daughter was born on the night of the last on.”

“I forget about how Alfor has a kid, he doesn’t really seem like the type,” Lance said, though he did make a mental note that she was only about three years older than them but, if his memory served him right, she had already completed her training with Alfor.

“Yeah, he started training her pretty young so now she’s off doing her own thing,” Keith said as they came out onto the inlet. “He told me one time what she was doing but I’ve kinda forgotten.”

Lance hummed as he looked around the inlet, he didn’t see anyone else here, maybe they didn’t need to even go on that five minute freezing cold walk. “So why exactly did we need to come all the way out here?”

“To get the best view, duh,” Keith said before walking towards the water’s edge. He looked back at Lance with a smirk on his face. “I have an idea.”

“Don’t you always,” Lance said with a chuckle as he followed after Keith.

“So can you, uh, do the thing when you freeze the water so we go out further,” Keith said as he pointed out at the ocean.

“You want me to walk us across this water so we’re just standing in the middle of the water while we watch this thing?” Lance asked, not sure whether to laugh or shake his head. Sometimes Keith’s ideas were a bit… out there.

“I was actually thinking of sitting,” Keith muttered and before Lance could make a comment on getting his butt both cold and wet Keith said, “Come on, you like showing off.”

Dang it, somehow Keith had figured out that he liked showing off, though he didn’t seem to know that he did it around Keith because he liked the face Keith made when he thought something was cool. He got this sparkle in his eye and his mouth would turn into a little o and it was super cute-

“Please,” Keith said, tugging at his jacket sleeve and looking at him with those stupid puppy dog eyes that he didn’t seem to realize that he had.

“Ugh fine,” Lance said, putting one foot over the water and freezing up a small patch big enough for the two of them. “But watch the fire; we don’t want our path to melt out from underneath us.”

“You know I can’t burn your ice on accident anymore, right?” Keith asked as he stepped lightly on the ice like he was worried that it would fall out from underneath him.

“Come on fireboy, let’s go look at these stars,” Lance said as he held out his arm, half as a joke and about caused the ice to turn back to water out of pure shock when Keith actually looped his arm with Lance’s.

“Lead the way waterboy,” Keith said, with an identical smirk that Lance had just given him.

Lance considered opening his mouth but knew he’d only be able to give a sputtered come-back so he kept on moving, freezing a nice little path way of ice until they were all the way out of the inlet and a little bit of a ways past. He froze the path of ice out to be a bit bigger so Keith could sit on the ice like the crazy person he was.

Now that Keith had walked across the ice he didn’t seem to have any worry that it could break and flopped himself right down onto the ice. He patted the patch of ice next to him, looking up at Lance like he knew that Lance wouldn’t sit down next to him.

So Lance made the most obvious decision to sit himself right down next to Keith and gave him a wide smile, all while ignoring how cold his butt was quickly becoming.

Keith sent Lance a smile back before extinguishing his small flame and looking up at the sky. “It should be starting soon.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, not taking his eyes off Keith. Even in the dark of the night he could see the outline of Keith’s face and his stupid pretty hair that he always wanted to reach out and touch and maybe due to the lack of sleep he felt his head unconsciously began to raise up from the ice only to be stopped when Keith reached out and gripped Lance’s sleeve.

“It’s starting!”

Lance turned away from Keith and looked up into the sky, his eyes widening as he watched what looked like the stars racing across the night sky. Hundreds of stars seemed to be falling from their place on the sky, raining down like glittering lights. It was beautiful.

Lance was turning to Keith to tell him something this when suddenly his mouth went dry and clamped shut when he saw Keith’s face bathed in the light of the falling stars. Keith was staring up at the sky with wide eyes and the most peaceful and serene look Lance thinks he’s ever seen the other boy with, and honestly it kinda breathtaking, but also really bad for his heart.

He felt his heart ache just a little as he forced himself to look back up at the stars, whatever was going on with his feelings for Keith and he couldn’t help but think this wasn’t just an average crush anymore as his eyes kept drifting back to Keith’s face. This was serious, Lance had fallen hard for Keith and as he felt his heart squeeze at Keith’s little smile he realized that he was only falling in deeper with every passing minute.

/////

“And now I’m panicking because what the heck am I supposed to do about this Hunk?” Lance asked, he was sitting on top of an empty work table and tossing a piece of metal between his hands as he watched Hunk weld his latest project.

“I don’t know,” Hunk said, not looking up from his work, “Maybe you should just tell him how you feel.”

“Wha-what no way!” Lance sputtered, almost dropping the metal in his hands. “There’s still a whole year left of our training. I don’t want to make things awkward by forcing my feelings on him.”

“Lance stop being ridiculous,” Hunk said, pausing in his welding and pushing his glasses onto his head, “You won’t make it awkward by telling Keith how you feel, plus I’m pretty sure you’re not forcing your feelings onto Keith. Stop worrying about it so much dude, you two get along really well. Plus if you think about it, it’s almost like you went on some late night rendezvous the other night sooooo-“

“Hunk come on buddy, I need some good advice,” Lance groaned as he continued rolling the piece of metal in his hand. “You’re the one with the girlfriend.”

“Well that’s because I took the chance and told her how I felt,” Hunk said as he pulled his goggles back down and started welding again. “Keith isn’t a mind reader dude, if you want him to know how you feel you’ll have to tell him how you feel yourself.”

Lance groaned. “Can’t it be any easier, like I just snap my fingers and suddenly Keith and I are in an established relationship?”

“I’m afraid that’s not how it goes buddy,” Hunk said. “You gotta take a chance if you want to reap the benefits.”

“I hate it when you’re right.”

“I always am.”

Lance hummed and changed the topic before he thought about Keith any longer. “So how was your date this weekend?”

“Oh man it was great! We went to this new restaurant in her town and oh man Shay looked so cute!”

Lance let Hunk ramble on about his date until Coran showed back up from his outing and shooed Lance out claiming that he didn’t want to be responsible if he got hurt. As he walked back he considered heading down to the beach to get some practice in when he noticed Keith practicing. Hunk’s words echoed in his mind as he opened the gate and walked in.

“You need a partner hotshot?”

/////

“You might want to widen your stance a little more Lance,” Blaytz said as he and Lance squared each other up from opposite ends of the training grounds. It was their usual spar that they had begun doing every day since the beginning of his final year of training. With each passing day it was getting closer and closer to the end of his training with Blaytz, and Lance was going to make every minute worth it.  
He didn’t say anything to Blaytz about his comment but widened his stance a smidge before moving forward and making the first move.

He sent out a stream of water towards Blaytz who moved it out of his way and slung it right back at Lance.

Holding up his hand he stopped the water and with his other he sent shards of ice Blaytz’s way.

Blaytz blocked it with a sheet of ice before sending a series of globs at water at him.

Lance dodged all of them and sent a whip of water from behind Blaytz. His teacher barely managed to doge it, with the very edge of the whip hitting the back of his shirt.

Lance pumped his fist in the air in victory. The spar always ended once someone was touched by an attack, and Lance had won again for the fifth time in a row.

“Don’t be getting too cocky,” Blaytz said as he took the water out of his shirt and sent it back into the pond. “I’m sure I would’ve had you if I hadn’t told you about your stance.”

“Heh, yeah sure,” Lance said as he rolled his eyes before readying himself again. Time for round two; and he had no plans on losing.

/////

Taking a deep breath Lance willed the water to cover his arms until they were like long whip like appendages. Testing them out a few times to make sure that they wouldn’t splash to the ground like the last few before he stared down his target, a large rock that Hunk had been nice enough to create for him before he headed into his apprenticeship.

Throwing his left arm towards the rock he turned the very end of the whip to ice and put a thin slice in the rock. He mimicked the move with his right arm before moving on to doing both at the same time, having one coming down on the rock and the other reeling back from its hit and refreezing. He cut this up until the rock had been turned into a pile of rubble.

Instead of bending the water back into its source Lance focused on picking up the rocks and moving them around, he had only successfully moved the rock three times by the time the sun was creeping behind the horizon, signaling that Lance needed to head back before he missed dinner.

/////

“I can’t believe we’re all free on the same day,” Hunk said as he threw his arms onto both Lance and Keith’s shoulders. “I’ve missed hanging out with the both of you. I mean, I see Lance all the time but I swear I haven’t seen you in months Keith.”

Keith looked kinda sheepish as he shrugged. “Our free days never seem to match up.”

“Ah it’s no problem dude,” Hunk said. “I know you don’t sneak off when you’re supposed to be training like some people.”

“Hunk!” Lance cried. “That’s not true; I just don’t spend every minute of daylight training like Keith.”

Both of them were laughing as Lance crossed his arms. “Besides sometimes you’re there with me when I’m training.”

“Oh I know, because I always end up bending some rock for you to fight against,” Hunk said as they walked into a new shop on the edge of town. It had opened about a month ago and apparently Keith had seen something cool in the window and had wanted to go in to check it out. So Lance might’ve mentioned it to Hunk who in turn might’ve shown up on Keith’s doorstep that morning and told him that the three of them were going into town today to hang out.

Keith went off to look for whatever he had seen the other day and left Hunk and Lance to look around on his home.  
\  
“Man he’s excited,” Hunk said as he began to look at a shelf of scrolls.

“Yeah he’s been talking about coming into town all week to try and find it again,” Lance said as he looked at a shelf full of weird rock sculptures. “Hey Hunk, if engineering doesn’t work out for you I’m sure you can do….whatever this is.”

“Nope,” Hunk said without even looking up from the scroll he had pulled out. “I’d sooner go back to the shop than do whatever it is you’re pointing at.”

“Wow, rude,” Lance said as he picked up one of the sculptures and turned it over in his hands. They did look kinda cool, and his sister’s birthday was coming up in a few weeks. 

She might find it pretty cool, plus than he wouldn’t need to worry about finding a gift a few days beforehand and freaking out when he couldn’t find anything.

“So have you decided if you’re going to tell Keith how you feel or-“ Hunk began before Lance cut him off by slapping his hand over his mouth.

“Shhhhh,” Lance hissed as he looked around to make sure Keith wasn’t nearby. “Don’t say those kinds of things when he’s nearby.”

“Oh, so I shouldn’t say that you have a major crush on him,” Hunk teased as Lance tried to not ascend to the next realm right then and there.

“Hunk please,” Lance whined. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Buddy you have like, what, eight months left before you both are done with training,” Hunk said as he took out another scroll. “I’m just saying that you’re going to be heading back home sooner than you think and to keep it in mind as you gaze longingly at him and think you have all the time in the world to tell him.”

Lance groaned and was about to make a comeback when Keith appeared by his side.

“Lance, I found it,” Keith said as held up some kind of tiny gem that was smaller than a marble. Despite it’s tiny size Lance could see why it had caught Keith’s eye. The gem was a dark blue with burst of brighter blue running throughout it.

“Are you going to get it?” Lance asked, glad to finally have something to think about other than Hunk making him talk about his crush.

“Hmmm, maybe,” Keith said as he turned it over in his hand. “It would clear out most of my saved up money but I think it’s worth it.”

Once Keith had went off to Hunk leaned over and said to him, “I bet he gives it to you.”

“I highly doubt it,” Lance said, rolling his eyes despite the fact that the idea of Keith giving it to him made his heart seize for a second.

“Whatever you say man,” Hunk said before going back to the scrolls.

Keith did give Lance the gem, but that’s a story for another day.

/////  
“Come on hotshot,” Lance said as he easily ducked Keith’s flame and shot out a spray of water that Keith took down with a wave of his hand. Over the past two years, oh man and it was going to be three soon, that kinda freaked Lance out; the two had become almost evenly matched. There were the few exceptions when one would outsmart the other but normally their spars would go on for ages until they finally decided to call it a draw. “These are all old moves, surprise me!”

Keith scoffed at him before kicking a wave of fire at him that Lance blocked with a wall of water. “I see they’re still enough to work against you though.”

“It’s just cause I’m going easy on you,” Lance teased as he sent a shower of ice Keith’s way.

“Oh, is that so,” Keith said as he danced out of the way of the ice. “It makes sense; I haven’t even broken out into a sweat.”

“Are you sure, cause where I’m standing you look kind of glistening,” Lance said as he threw up an ice wall to stop the flame of fire Keith threw at him.

“Glistening?” Keith asked with a snort as he moved out of the way of the ice wall moving towards him. “I didn’t realize you were staring at me so hard.”

“Some of us like to keep a close eye on our opponents,” Lance said, sidestepping Keith’s fireball. “You should try it sometime.”

“Oh really?” Keith said, jumping out of the way of Lance’s whip and shooting down two balls of fire at Lance.

Lance sidestepped the attack, “It’s why I have an advantage over you.”

Keith didn’t respond to that surprisingly, making Lance frown as he threw his next attack at Keith who seemed to be concentrating a lot harder than before.

Lance was about to open his mouth and make some comment about Keith’s lack of banter when he watched Keith make a movement he had never seen before and sent out a blue flame from his hand, Lance easily dodged it but it still passed close to him and it gave off so much more heat than Keith’s normal flames.

Lance looked back at Keith with wide eyes while Keith looked back at him with a smirk. “Are you impressed yet?”

“Holy shit Keith,” Lance said running over to Keith and grabbing him by the arm. “That’s so freaking cool!”

“It took me like a whole year to finally do it right,” Keith said with a laugh. “I’ve been waiting to show you.”

“I see you had to be dramatic about it,” Lance teased. “But color me impressed dude; that was cool.”

“So does that mean I won?” Keith asked, his voice showing that he was teasing Lance right back.

“I’m afraid not,” Lance said, crossing his arm. “You can’t just win by showing me a cool move.”

“So restart?” Keith asked, already moving back into his sparring stance.

“Oh you know it,” Lance said with a smile as he got into his stance.

/////

“I can’t believe they gave us both the day off,” Lance cried as he jumped into the water while Keith watched him from the shore.

“They said they have to have a meeting or something today,” Keith said from his place on the beach, while he had worn swim trunks he didn’t seem to have any plans of getting in the water with Lance based on the book he had brought with him.

“Yeah right, that’s why Blaytz was still dead asleep in bed when we left,” Lance said as he plopped himself right down into the water. If Keith wasn’t going to get in the water it wasn’t going to be as fun, who else was he going to mess around with using his bending?

An idea came to Lance’s mind and his mouth curled up into a smirk as he lifted up a ball of water from the ocean and sent it floating towards where Keith was sitting perfectly dry in the sand. Thankfully Keith was reading his book and was completely oblivious to the ball of water floating his way.

Once it was hovering right over top of Keith, Lance let it drop.

Lance is sure that their teachers’ heard Keith screaming as he jumped up from the ground, soaked to the bone and making his way towards Lance with a glimmer in his eye that told Lance he was going to get it.

“I swear to the gods Lance!” Keith yelled before running after Lance in the water, who was now trying to run away from Keith’s wrath. He failed however and Keith tackled him into the water, sending them down onto the sandy bottom.

“Wow rude,” Lance said as he spit sand and water out of his mouth, staring up at Keith who was dripping water onto his face.

“Hmmm, well you started it,” Keith said with a smirk as he sat back in the water. “I hope that you’re happy that you got what you wanted.”

“Oh very,” Lance said with a smile as he sat up as well, “Because you see, I’m about to change your whole life.”

“Really?” Keith asked, crossing his arms, but looking a little ridiculous thanks to his dripping hair.

“I’m going to show you how to have fun at the beach, I mean; you have a water bender with you right now. This is like my playing field,” Lance said as he spread his arms out wide.

“Well than show me how you play.”

A wide smile crossed Lance’s face as he stood up and pulled Keith up with him. “I’m about to show you the best water sport ever, surfing.”

Later that day as they walked back with water still dripping off of them as they laughed about Keith’s major wipe out. Keith’s laugh always made Lance’s heart flutter and couldn’t help but make him want to hear it all the time. The setting sun hit Keith just right, making his look like he was framed in a glowing light when it hit Lance like a load of bricks. His heart beat seemed to stop for a second before speeding up, he was in love with Keith. 

///// 

Blaytz had been getting on Lance lately for never meditating, claiming that a major part of bending was able to clear your mind in even the most overwhelming situations to bend his best.

So now Lance was sitting in the middle of his room and focusing on meditating, or well trying to clear his mind.

He concentrated on his breathing, slowing it down and evening it out, clearing his mind of-

“Hey did you do your chores?” Blaytz asked, throwing open Lance’s door and peeking his head in. “Just wanted to make sure you did before I turned in.”

And this was why Lance never got to meditate. “Yeah Blaytz, I always do, don’t I?”

“Just checking,” Blaytz said before closing the door. “Goodnight.”

Shaking his head Lance went back to focusing on his breathing and-

“Hey,” Keith said as he threw open Lance’s other door and walked in. “Alfor’s daughter is visiting and she’s kinda scary so I’m going to hang out here until they go to sleep.”  
Lance stifled a groan.

/////

“Remember when you were scared of Allura?” Lance teased as he rested his head against the wall. They were in Keith’s room for once, with the two of them sitting side by side on his bed.

“Please stop reminding me,” Keith groaned as his head hit the wall. “She’s intimidating, she’s a great bender and she looks like she could snap me in half if she wanted to.”

“But she doesn’t, so you have nothing to worry about,” Lance said. Allura’s visit had lasted for about two weeks and she had left over a month ago, but Lance still liked to tease Keith for his first reaction to her.

Keith grumbled but didn’t say anything.

“So dude, what are you planning on doing after your training is over?” Lance asked, almost absently though it had been a question itching in the back of his mind.

“I don’t know,” Keith said with a shrug, glancing over at Lance.

“You’re not going to go and see your family or anything?” Lance asked, knocking his foot against Keith’s.

“Well I don’t really have a family to go see so…” Keith said and oh no had Lance messed up.

“Oh man I’m-“

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Keith said, holding up his hand. 

“What about that one guy you told me about once?” Lance said, as he began to realize how Keith has never once mentioned anything about his parents and never once went to visit anyone like Lance had.

“Shiro?” Keith asked before glancing down to his lap. “I don’t know, before I even left to train under Alfor we had kinda fallen out of touch. He works for the police force and I only met him by chance. He was away on an undercover assignment when Alfor offered to train me. For all he knows I ran off somewhere new.”

“Oh, well I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten about you,” Lance said, bumping his shoulder against Keith’s. “I bet if you went to see him he’d be happy to see you.”

“Hmm, maybe,” Keith said with a sigh. “I don’t even have the faintest idea on what to do after this I mean, I don’t have anywhere to go or even know what I could do!”

“What do you mean you don’t have anywhere to go?”

“Lance, I was living on the streets when I met Alfor. He saw me fighting off three guys who were trying to take my spot and walked up to me and told me he was going to train me if I let him. The only reason I’m even here is because I got lucky.”

Lance was stunned into silence for a few seconds after that. Keith had never really been one to open up and now here he was telling Lance something that was obviously hard for him to talk about based on how his voice wavered. 

“Well Keith, you’re always welcomed to stay at my house if you ever need to,” Lance eventually said, he didn’t want to push Keith into talking about this anymore than he wanted to.

Keith was silent for a few seconds. “Thanks Lance, I think might have to take you up on that offer.”

Lance smiled. “No problem Keith, no problem.”

Somehow they managed to quickly move past that heavy moment and joke about how Allura had easily taken Alfor down while she was visiting. However afterwards, every once in a while Keith would bring something up from his childhood, and the fact that he was comfortable enough around Lance to share this warmed Lance’s heart.

/////

Taking a deep breath Lance willed himself to focus on everything around him, taking note of every drop of water, not just the water in the pond, but in the plants, in the air as well.

Letting out the breath he began to concentrate on the water simply in the air. He took a breath and willed the water to form in front of him, pulling it from the air and into a tangible ball.

It took three tries until he had a decently sized ball of water, he smiled to himself, happy to finally be able to do something Blaytz had been talking to him about for a while, when someone spoke from behind him and about made him jump out of his skin.

“Now you can just make water appear out of thin air huh?” Keith asked with that stupidly cute smirk on his face as he leaned against a pole holding up the roof. “Color me impressed.”

Lance rolled his eyes and let out a laugh. “I’m not like you fireboy,” Lance teased as he shot the little ball of water as Keith who easily stepped out of it’s way.

“Oooo, I’m even more impressed,” Keith said as he hopped over the porch and headed over towards Lance. “You wanna spar against me and try out the move?”

“You know it,” Lance said with a smirk as he got into position. Time to take his next win.

/////

“Take a minute you two,” Blaytz yelled, clapping his hands together to get Lance and Keith’s attention. The two stopped sparring and turned towards their teachers.

“Since the two of you are already out here together we figured we would just tell you that there is now only a week left of your training before you’re set free into the world,” Blaytz said.

“And before you leave you’ll both spar against us and depending on how well you hold your own will determine whether you could leave here as simply was bender or as a master in our eyes,” Alfor said, glancing between the two of them. “So I would suggest the two of you focus on practicing the next few days to prepare.”

“Got it,” Keith said while Lance let it process that he had only a week left of what had become his entire life the past three years. In a week he wouldn’t wake up by Blaytz banging on his door, or learning any new technics, or sparring against Blaytz the first of every month, or sparring with Keith pretty much every day, or seeing Hunk on the weekends, and Keith, gods Keith and Lance’s feelings towards him was another whole can of worms that he still hadn’t tried to deal with.

Keith was getting into position to start sparring again when Blaytz cut in. 

“Hey Lance, come over here and talk with me for a second,” his teacher said as he waved Lance over. They walked all the way out of the training grounds before Blaytz spoke, placing his hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“Lance I just want to stress once again that there is only a week left before you’re on your own,” Blaytz said, all seriousness as Lance tried to figure out what the heck this was for.

“Uh yeah I know, you guys just told us,” Lance said, his brow knitting together.

“So that means we only have so much time left together.”

“Yeaaaaah?”

“So we should say things that we want to say,” Blaytz said, giving Lance a look like he expected him to know what he was talking about.

“Do-do you want me to compliment you or something?”

“Oh my gods Lance,” Blaytz groaned as he tilted his head back. “Tell Keith how you feel before it’s too late!”

“Wha-what how did you know that I had a crush on Keith? I-I mean I don’t have a crush on Keith, have you seen him?” Lance said, tripping over his words as he let out an awkward laugh.

“Lance, I’m not dumb,” Blaytz said with a sigh. “Listen, you’ll regret all the things you didn’t do in life, so don’t regret this, something that could be the start of something beautiful.”

Lance was left speechless as Blaytz patted him on the shoulder and walked away. After standing stiff for a few minutes he made his way back to the training ground, trying not to overthink Blaytz’s words.

“Hey, you ready to get back to sparring?” Lance managed to ask as he opened the gate to the training grounds.

Keith whirled around to look at with a very red looking face.

“Man dude, what the heck did you do while I was gone?” Lance joked.

“Oh you know,” Keith said, with a shrug. “Alfor just talked to me about….some stuff.”

“Same,” Lance groaned as he got into positon. “You ready to get your butt kicked?”

Keith laughed. “You wish.”

/////

“So, we’re seriously leaving in three days,” Lance said, pulling his knees up to his chest as he watched the sun sink below the horizon.

“It’s more like two days now,” Keith said from besides him. They were sitting out by the point; they had spent the afternoon sparring against each other to get ready for their final exam tomorrow.

Lance chuckled. “We still have the night Keith.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith said, and Lance looked out of the corner of his eye at just the right time so he could see the last rays of sun bounce off of Keith, making him look almost ethereal. “I’m going to miss all of this, it was-it was nice to have a solid place to come home to.”

“Don’t ever forget my offer to stay with me,” Lance said as he nudged Keith with his elbow. “You’re always invited if you ever need a place to stay.”

“I know, you’ve only reminded me twenty times,” Keith said with a laugh. “I’m beginning to think you want me to go home with you.”

Lance almost balked at Keith’s words because if Lance was being honest, that was what he wanted, not that he could tell Keith that cause how weird would it be to tell you friend, who you’re kinda in love with, that you want him to come home with you because you want him to always be a part of your life.

Apparently Lance was taking too long to respond so Keith kept talking. “Not that I’m against that or, uh, anything-“

When Lance gets nervous he tends to just say whatever is on his mind, he knows this, which is why he tends to keep his mouth shut when he gets nervous in case he says something he should probably think more about before saying. However upon hearing Keith imply that he wanted to come home with Lance he couldn’t help but open his mouth and say whatever came to mind first.

“You should come home with me then,” Lance said, sitting up straighter. “You can stick around until you know what to do or whatever.”

“Geez I didn’t realize you cared about me that much,” Keith said. Lance could tell he was joking by the lilt of his voice and how he tilted his head slightly to the right. Lance however decided to answer Keith truthfully and without even thinking the words spilled out of his mouth.

“Well yeah I’m kinda in love with you dude-“

“Wait, what?!” Keith yelled, his voice cracking as Lance felt his entire body pause. To think he’s spent the past year and a half trying to figure out whether or not he was even going to tell Keith how he felt, only to accidently spit it out at random, oh man he had even called him dude!

“Uuuuuh, well, you see-“

“You just said you’re in love with me!” Keith cried, he was staring at Lance with wide as he reached out and grabbed Lance by the shoulders. 

“Yeah, um, I uh, definitely said that,” Lance managed to stumble out.

“Did-did you mean it?” Keith asked his voice quiet as he stared intently at Lance.

Lance took a deep breath. “Yes, I think I’ve been into you ever since that night of the festival, and um, I know this might be a lot to process since I’m kinda springing this on you and we’re leaving in a few days and oh man if you don’t feel the same it might be kinda awkward if you stay with me cause you’re going to have to sleep in the same room with me cause that house is so packed and-“

Lance was cut off by Keith shooting forward and pressing his lips against Lance’s, cupping Lance’s cheek with his hand before pulling away and whispering against Lance’s lips, “I think I’ve been into you since the minute we met.”

“Man Keith, that’s a long time,” Lance mumbled back as he cupped Keith’s face.

Keith huffed out a laugh. “Oh trust me, I know. I was about to go start my fire training and then I suddenly met this cute boy who was apparently going to be right next door to me and I panicked.”

“Awww man, is that why you were so shy?” Lance asked, almost not believing his ears.

Keith rolled his eyes but despite that an affectionate smile spread across his lips. “Yes Lance, I was so caught off guard by how cute you were I could barely talk without thinking I was going to mess up my words.”

“Man now I feel even worse about how I was kinda a jerk to you!”

“Well I was apparently the kind of person who liked ticking my crush off so I think we’re even on that,” Keith said with a half-smile before pressing a quick kiss to the corner of Lance’s mouth.

“So, will you come home with me,” Lance began as he laced one hand with Keith’s, “As my boyfriend?”

“Like you really have to ask,” Keith said as he leaned forward and kissed Lance again, a small peck but so much less awkward than the first.

“So that’s a yes then?” Lance teased once Keith had pulled away.

“Hmmm, yeah I think so,” Keith said with a smile as he draped his arms over Lance’s shoulders. “Not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“Wow rude,” Lance said as Keith laughed. “To think my own boyfriend would do this to me.”

Keith paused for a second before a wide smile crossed his face. “I like that.”

“What?” Lance asked his mouth curling into a grin as he figured out Keith’s answer before he even told him.

“When you call me your boyfriend.”

Lance pulled Keith up to him for another kiss.

//////

“You ready for this?” Keith asked with a smirk as he got into position.

“You know it babe,” Lance said, mirroring Keith’s smirk as he watched the light blush spread across his boyfriend’s face at the nickname. It was their final day as students and they were to spar today as the last part of their sort of final test before their teacher’s gave them their stamp of approval.

“Okay boys, you know the rules,” Blaytz said as he raised his hand up. “We want a nice clean spar, got it.”

“Yep,” the two said in unison as Blaytz took a step down and brought his hand down.

“Begin!”

Lance made the first move, grabbing a ring of water to circle himself for easy access and sending a water whip for Keith’s feet at the same time. “Are you ready to lose Keith?”

Keith easily dodge the whip like he had done numerous times before, pulling both his fists back and punching out two balls of fire one after the other towards Lance. “You’re going to have to try harder than that!”

He blocked it easy with a quick water wall before sending a rain of ice towards Keith. “Are you even trying over there babe?”

Throwing up a fire wall Keith melted the ice, “Oh it’s practically a walk in the park!” That move gave Lance enough time to create two water arms and begin sending them towards Keith who was forced to dodge out of the way before he could create an attack.

“Really? Well for me it’s practically like I’m relaxing over here!”

Lance continued his barrage of attacks before Keith was able to find enough time shoot a line of fire towards Lance.

To jump out of the way of the fire attack Lance had to drop his water arms but quickly created himself another water ring.

From his stance Lance could tell Keith’s attack was probably going to be a long range one, so before he even had the time to see Keith’s exact attack he quickly created a path of ice upwards just as Keith sent out a wave of fire towards him.

Bringing his ice path down Lance headed right for Keith, enveloping one of his hands in water and freezing it into a point. He came to a grinding halt in front of Keith, his ice pointed at Keith’s throat.

“Hmmm, looks like I win babe,” Lance said with a smirk, waiting for Keith’s pout only for a smirk to form instead.

“I would check again, babe,” Keith purred as Lance glanced down and saw Keith pointing two fingers at Lance’s chest with electricity running up and down them. It looked like once again it was a draw.

“Awwww, no fair,” Lance groaned as they lowered their arms. “The first time you call me babe was to crush my hopes of winning.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll call you by a nickname again,” Keith said as Alfor stood up from where he was sitting and yelled over to them.

“Okay lovebirds, get back into position. You still have two more rounds!”

Keith glanced back at Lance with a wide smile on his face. “Best two out of three, babe?”

“Oh you know it,” Lance said as he got back into position. “You’re going down.”

//////

“You guys will definitely come back and visit right?” Hunk asked as the three of them stood at the train station waiting for the train that would take Lance and Keith home.

“Of course dude,” Lance said as he hugged his best friend. “We’re just going to crash at my parents for a bit and just take a break for maybe a week or two. Then we’ll go from there.”

“We’re thinking of going to the same city as Pidge to find work,” Keith piped up. “So we’ll be able to visit you on our way there.”

“Oh man I’m really going to miss you guys,” Hunk said as he moved onto Keith for a hug. “Maybe I should start looking in the city for a job too so we can all be together.”

Lance laughed as he watched Keith pat Hunk on the back. “Don’t worry bud, once you’re done working under Coran I’m sure every company will be fighting to have you work for them.”

Hunk laughed as their train pulled into the station.

“Looks like we have to head out buddy,” Lance said before pulling Hunk in for one last hug. “We’ll visit soon.”

“You better,” Hunk called after them as they stepped onto the train, both of them waving to him before going off to find their seat.

“So, are you ready?” Lance asked once they sat down. “I mean, you’re about to meet my family and we’ve only been dating for like, three days.”

“Lance, I’ve been planning on meeting your parents for months, the only difference is now I’m your boyfriend,” Keith said as he shoved his bag under his seat. “I’m not worried, so you shouldn’t be either.”

“Yeah, yeah I know,” Lance said as he took Keith’s hand in his. “Are you ready for whatever comes next?”

“You know it,” Keith said with a grin as he squeezed Lance’s hand. Lance was leaning in for a kiss when someone sat in a seat across from them and loudly cleared their throat.

“Oh, um sorry miss-“ Lance began to quickly apologize until he saw who was sitting across from them. “Allura, what are you doing here?”

A small smile crossed Allura’s face as she clasped her hands together. “I came to talk about a sort of…proposition to you boys.”

“What sort of proposition?” Keith asked, Lance could feel the hesitance roll off of Keith in droves.

Allura’s smile grew wider. “Have you two ever heard of the story of the person who could bend all four elements?”


End file.
